Mixed Metaphors Chapter xiv

Tony sat for hours unable to sleep. Although the sun was coming up, by Tony’s watch it was only two o’clock the afternoon before. They had been flying almost eight hours, and due to all the details in his mind and the fact he had slept most of the night before, he couldn’t close his eyes. They were scheduled to be in Naples, in about two hours.

He placed an old favorite DVD in the player, placed the expensive headphones across his ears and started the movie. The movie was “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” staring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. The story is how the master sleuth hunts his archenemy, Professor Moriarty, who is planning the crime of the century.

Not many people were, or are aware that Basil Rathbone was born in June of 1892, in Johannesburg, South Africa. The family was made to leave their home three years later because his father was accused by the Boers of being a British spy, at a time when Dutch-British conflicts were leading to the Boer War.

Tony also recalled that Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn, or Erol Flynn as we know him, was born in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. So two of the most famous English actors weren’t even born in England. Even Nigel Bruce of Dr. Watson fame was born in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico.

One of the most memorible scenes of the movie was when Moriarty
had just returned home from prison, where he had spent time behind bars for killing a man. The sceen is with his man servant, Dawes:

Dawes: You wanted to see me, sir?
Proff: I’m away for a few weeks, Dors, and I come back to find my anthurium magenta, my incomparable anthurium magenta, withered, ruined…
Dawes: I can’t understand it, sir; I took good care of all the plants.
Proff: Did you water them?
Dawes: Every day – just as you told me, sir.
Proff: Then how does it happen that I find a spider’s web spun across the spout of the watering can?
Dawes: That can happen overnight, sir.
Proff: Overnight, huh? Then you didn’t water them today?
Dawes: There’s been so much to do, sir, preparing for your coming back.
Proff: Nothing is as important as the care of my flowers. Through your neglect, this flower has died. You’ve murdered a flower!
Dawes: Why, I’m sorry, sir.
Proff: To think for merely murdering a man I was incarcerated for six whole weeks in a filthy prison cell.
Dawes: A pity, sir!
Proff: A travesty on justice!
Dawes: Quite so, sir.
Proff: And for this crime, Dors, you should be flogged, broken on the wheel, drawn and quartered…
Dawes: Yes, sir. Will that be all, sir?
Proff: …and boiled in oil!
Dawes: Thank you, sir.
Proff: Go away.
Dawes: Yes, sir.

Tony laughed thinking about how Moriarty mispronounced Dawes, and called the manservant “Dors”. He was just getting into the story when Miss. Omagato came up to his seat and informed him there was a phone call from New York. He could take it on line 1 of the phone attached to his seat. Tony picked up the phone from its cradle. The call was from his secretary.

She informed him that the models, which were to be in the Hugo Boss shoot, would be delayed in Germany for another day and would not be able to meet the group in Naples until Friday. This sounded great to Tony as he was hoping for some time to give Becky a tour of the ancient city. He was also hoping to take her to the city of Pompeii, which had been covered, in volcanic ash in 89 AD, when the volcano Vesuvius blew up. It was a very sexy city.

Tony continued watching the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; however fell asleep before it was over. Although they had departed New York on Tuesday morning, it was now Wednesday afternoon.