The Legend of le Tuff: (6) Supple -- and subtle

One can only suppose that years of championship fencing must have honed le Tuff's reflexes to the sharpness of one of the many broken Gillette safety razors scattered on his desk, for it was only a matter of a quarter of an hour or so of Crippens's incessant friendly blows before mein host leapt to his feet and greeted me as warmly as if he had known me for years and was fully conscious.

"Wilson! Do come in!" he ejaculated.

"I am in already, le Tuff," I replied. Oh, the wit of the man!

"So you are, so you are. That will be all, Crimble."

Le Tuff's loyal manservant and occupational therapist shuffled to the door, turned, bowed, smiled, scraped something off the sole of his shoe and left the chamber.

"So, what brings you here, old man?" the famous navigator and entomologist inquired.

"Your invitation was intriguing, Baz -- if I may call you Baz."

"Yes ... and no," was his enigmatic reply.

Le Tuff "wrote the book" on personal hygeine, and as he flossed his teeth I became aware of a genuine French bidet in the corner of the room, but I gave no compliment at this moment for I saw that he was about to speak. His great mouth opened wide, he drew breath, and that aquiline eye shot through the window of my soul like an arrow.

With one eyebrow cocked, his gaze transfixed me for a full minute, as he slowly and almost gracefully pirouetted, like a huge cog in an ancient grain mill, still staring like a cobra at my receptive eye. His body, so supple from a lifetime of extreme calisthenics, twisted, and lowered itself such that within a fascinating moment his face showed through the space between his svelte legs, near his crutch. An amicable and intellectual-looking grin spread from cheek to cheek, and he disarmingly spoke to me -- just seven eloquent, mysterious words that burned into my soul and will remain with me till the end of my days:

"What about that Son of Sam, huh?"