Chapter 9 of Royal Flash was so short (10 pages) that it barely qualifies as a chapter.
After taking his leave of the Sons and Carl Gustaf you would think Harry was getting out of Dodge (come to think of it somewhere in his adventures I think Flashman actually did get out of Dodge, maybe if he’d been able to write it George MacDonald Fraser would have tried to pin the saying’s origin on his hero), instead he heads for Strackenz.
Why? One last loving fumble at his little ‘wife’? No…well that does happen, but it wasn’t his reason for heading back into the lion’s den. Aside from sex, there is one other thing that motivates Flashman, and that’s money. Those crown jewels are still there and as long as he still looks like Carl Gustaf and the world in general doesn’t know that he’s not the real article then who’s going to stop him from getting access to them.
After assuring Irma that he’s alive and well, knowing that his double will soon be along to replace him, Harry invents a reason to take off and gives the conscientious guard of the jewels some cock and bull story to get him out of the way, and plunders to his heart’s content. He fills a valise with the collection, it’s large enough that he doesn’t even have to bend the coronets flat to make them fit, and away he runs. Seemingly set for life if he can pull this off.
I’m not really sure why this one exists as a chapter on it’s own, given the length of some of the other chapters this one could have been incorporated. There’s some evidence that Flashman thought his theft out too, even if he’s pursued he doubts that because he gave a false name that he can ever be discovered. As he reflects if they go looking for Thomas Arnold then they will track him down, but good luck to them getting anything from the old headmaster’s grave.
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