Dubious Deeds

by Philip Ardagh

  Oh, whilst we’re on the subject of islands, let me quickly point out something strange which occurred to Eddie when he once saw an actor-manager named Mr Pumblesnook performing a piece from one of Shakespeare’s plays, a few years previously. In it was a soliloquy about England which included the words ‘this sceptered isle’, which was a bit odd because it occurred to Eddie that England wasn’t an isle – an island – at all. It had land borders with Scotland and Wales. Spain had land borders with just two countries too, and nobody called it an island, so what was going on? He’d asked Mr Pumblesnook about it but the actor-manager had muttered something about ‘never questioning the mighty bard’ and had hurried away to stop his wife, Mrs Pumblesnook, doing whatever it was she liked to do with the blotches of skin she peeled off her face and kept in a special pocket until the time was right.

  As Queen Victoria made the short journey along the green stair carpet, the cheers of the crowd mingled with a few cries of ‘Go back to England where you belong!’ (followed, in each instance, by a muffled thud of the offending shouter being merrily bopped on the head by a smiling policeman in dress uniform) ringing in her ears, a lone piper stepped out at the side of Lord Rhome’s coach and horses. He was very tall, and very impressively dressed, and was jumped on by the two liveried footmen before you could say, ‘They’re really two policemen in disguise.’

  The two men, Mr Digg (with two ‘g’s) and Mr Delve, threw themselves at the Lone Piper, knocking the wind out of him and his set of bagpipes, which whined a like flatulent cat, and if you don’t know what ‘flatulent’ means, I’m not going to be the one to tell you. The Lone Piper – who really was a lone piper – wrestled with his attackers, assuming that they were assassins in disguise, planning to harm Her Majesty, whilst Digg (with two ‘g’s) and Delve wrestled with him, assuming that he was the assassin in disguise.

  The reasons for this fracas – nice word, huh? It means ‘noisy quarrel’ or ‘brawl’ and comes from the French word fracasser, ‘to shatter’ – were a direct result of a last-minute change of plan and a failure to communicate. As those of you who can remember as far back as the first page of Episode 1 will recall, Queen Victoria loved all things Scottish, and a lone piper (aka a bloke on his own with a set of bagpipes) was just the sort of thing which added so significantly to her Scottish enjoyment. Unfortunately, however, the lone piper the Q-PUS had had lined up – sorry about the two ‘had’s in a row, but I didn’t invent the language – had – blimey, there’s another one – caught a rare kind of flu which you could only catch off a certain breed of pig if you spent too much time with one, so was currently tucked up in bed with a cuddly toy rabbit and a temperature of 104. The cuddly toy rabbit was described as being his mascot, and the temperature of 104 as being dangerous. What the Q-PUS had forgotten to tell those protecting Victoria was that he’d managed to find a last-minute replacement. It was this last-minute replacement whom Mr Digg (with two ‘g’s) and Mr Delve were now sitting on.

  I’d like to be able to tell you what the Lone Piper was saying – and, even with his broad Scottish accent, it was clear enough for the Scotland Yard men to include in their report – but I can’t repeat it here because it was t-o-o r-u-d-e. The Lone Piper was very, very, very angry. Eddie had witnessed the whole thing from his vantage point at the roadside, where he stood with Mrs McFeeeeeeee on one side and Mr McFeeeeeeee on the other. All three of them were dressed in their almost best, so that they could change into their very best for the main reception.

  When Queen Victoria came through the open gate on to the road, she was either so busy acknowledging the crowd with a gentle nod or the very slightest wave of a royal hand or so well trained as not to let such things faze her that she simply stepped on to the Lone Piper, who was struggling on the ground, and into Lord Rhome’s coach, the Sergeant-at-Arms doing the same.

  When the coach pulled away, heading for Gloaming Castle, the Q-PUS explained to Digg (you must be familiar with the spelling by now) and Delve that the Lone Piper was indeed not only a genuine lone piper but, when he wasn’t piping alone, also a retired captain in the British Army. The poor man had been trampled by so many feet that he woke up with some very interesting bruises the following morning. By way of an apology, he was later sent a boxful of figs. They gave him an upset tummy.

  Once at Gloaming Castle, Queen Victoria was offered what, according to the itinerary, was ‘light refreshment’ but, by today’s standards, would be better described as ‘a pig-out’. There seemed to be course after course, ending with a see-through jelly filled with flower petals. Only the select few were invited to this stage of the proceedings: members of the Rhome family and those making up the shooting party. In other words, after lunch they’d either go out shooting or go out and watch the shooting. The main reception for all the local dignitaries (and Eddie) was scheduled for the evening.

  Eddie couldn’t wait for the evening to come so, to take his mind off things, he decided to go to Tall Hall to see how things were. Well, ‘to see how things were’ was the reason that Eddie would have given if he’d been asked why he was going up there again; having been a number of times since he’d first discovered the so-called MacMuckle clan squatting there. I’ve no doubt that the real reason smelt of heather and had a pretty smile.

  Eddie found the front door locked, and no one answered his repeated knocking. Skirting around to the back of the house and down a short flight of stone steps, he found that the door leading into the kitchens wouldn’t budge either. But he knew where they hid the key. He ran back up the steps and over to a flowerbed. Lifting a large piece of stone that, by the look of the carvings on it, must once have been part of an older building, he wrestled the rusty old key from a colony of woodlice (or should that be ‘woodlouses’?) and let himself in.

  The place seemed deserted and, although Eddie had at least as much right as the others to be there, if not more so, it felt a little as though he were trespassing.

  ‘Hello?’ he called, his voice echoing ‘o’, ‘o’, ‘o’ through the vast hall. Nothing. After a quick scout around, Eddie was on the verge of giving up and going when he heard some muffled thuds coming from … coming from where, exactly?

  Episode 10

  Not Quite What It Seems

  In which Eddie makes a discovery and the author writes the longest episode in the book

  The noises finally led Eddie Dickens to the large studded door; the one which little Hamish had told him led down to the cellar; the one for which Hamish had told him they’d been unable to find the key.

  Someone must have found the key, though, Eddie thought, because noises were most definitely coming from down there.

  He banged on the door. ‘Hello!’ he shouted. The muffled thudding continued on the other side. ‘Hello!’ he shouted once more, then added: ‘Are you all right?’

  Then he heard the most extraordinary cry … or snort … or something. He wasn’t even quite sure whether it was human or not.

  Eddie grabbed a stool and scrambled up on to it, feeling along the top of the door frame to see whether the key had been put there out of view. No luck.

  His heart was pounding faster now. He had a terrible sinking feeling. He’d believed that those claiming to be MacMuckles were MacMuckles and had even instructed Angus McFeeeeeeee to let them stay here at Tall Hall against the lawyer’s advice … but what if they were, in truth, a band of villainous impostors involved in some dreadful scheme, and they were using this very cellar as a dungeon, packed with prisoners?

  No. Eddie mustn’t let his imagination run away with him. How often did one run into villains in real life? Well, in Eddie Dickens’s case, quite frequently. He’d encountered the Cruel-Streaks, who were a very nasty family running an orphanage for their own betterment, rather than the poor orphans’; he’d been kidnapped by escaped convicts up on a misty moor; he’d foiled an attempted jewel robbery aboard ship … So, seeing as how he seemed to attract trouble like a picnic attracts ants and wasps, no, it wasn’t beyo
nd the realms of possibility that he was right about being wrong about these so-called MacMuckles.

  But what should he do? There was no way that he could get that cellar door open without a key and, until he knew what lay behind it, he wasn’t happy about the idea of going around accusing anyone of anything.

  What if there were a perfectly good explanation for all that terrible thudding … though he was very hard-pressed to think of one. Perhaps he should go and find Mr McFeeeeeeee and see what he thought. The grounds of Tall Hall bordered the Gloaming estate. Tall Hall was the nearest building to Gloaming Castle, where, at that very moment, Queen Victoria and her party were residing.

  Then Eddie had another even more worrying thought. What if it were the MacMuckles who were locked in their own cellar? What if anti-royalist intruders had somehow overpowered Alexander, Iain, Hamish, Martha, Nelly and Roberta – sweet Robbie – and locked them all in there, binding and gagging them so that they couldn’t cry for help?

  Eddie had been bound and gagged once. Admittedly that had been in an open rowing boat rather than a cellar, but he imagined that the experience must be pretty similar: unpleasant.

  Eddie pressed his ear flat against the thick wooden door. He didn’t know what he was listening to, but he didn’t like what he heard.

  Eddie was within a cat’s whisker’s width of deciding that, whatever the consequences and however embarrassed he’d be if there were a perfectly innocent explanation for scuffling and thudding in the locked cellar, he must tell somebody when he heard voices. Someone was coming.

  There were few places to hide in the corridor but one was all he needed. Eddie crouched down behind an enormous Chinese-looking vase, taller than a man, with the pattern of a blue dragon snaking across the front.

  No sooner had he ducked out of sight than, peering around the bulbous middle of the china monstrosity, he saw Nelly and Martha coming into view.

  ‘Don’t look so worried,’ Martha said to Nelly. ‘It’ll soon be over and the Queen will be gone.’

  ‘If it goes wrong, we could all end up in the Tower!’ said Nelly, sounding as worried as she looked; her face puffy and her eyes red.

  ‘The boys have been over the plans a hundred times,’ Martha tried to reassure her. ‘And the cause is a good one.’

  ‘But the rifle –’

  ‘It’s been especially adapted. It won’t fail.’

  ‘It can’t fail, or we’ll end up with Scottish blood on our hands,’ said Nelly.

  They disappeared into the larder.

  Eddie’s heart was pounding in his ears like a jack-hammer. No, hang on: the sound of Eddie’s heart was pounding in his ears like a jack-hammer. If his heart really had been in his ears he’d have been in an even worse state than he was. Which was pretty bad.

  ‘If it goes wrong, we could all end up in the Tower!’ Nelly had said. The Tower of London. That’s where they used to send traitors before their execution, Eddie thought. And what treason did the so-called MacMuckles have planned? What had Martha said? ‘It’ll soon be over and the Queen will be gone.’ That was it. Gone? Gone where?

  Eddie had a very uneasy feeling about this; a stomach-churning, sicky-sick feeling. The occupants of Tall Hall were obviously mixed up in some very unsavoury scheme.

  When Eddie was satisfied that the two MacMuckles (if that was what they really were) were occupied by whatever it was that they were doing in the larder, he decided that he must make a break for it. Slipping out from behind the vase, he tiptoed past the open larder doorway, knowing that, if either of them were to glance his way, he could be spotted at any moment. With an almost audible sigh of relief, he made it out of the door, up the steps and slipped away through the grounds. He must find the royal shooting party on the Gloaming estate and warn them that someone meant the Queen some serious harm!

  *

  Lord Rhome stomped across the heather with glee. He was taking part in his two favourite pastimes: hunting deer and showing off his wealth and importance to people who really mattered; and few people mattered to him more than Queen Victoria.

  There had been a time when the Queen had pretty much disappeared from public life altogether. This started when her beloved husband, Prince Albert, had died, and it lasted for about twenty-five years. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS? Yup, at least twenty-five years. Like Mad Uncle Jack and the Dickens family portraits, Victoria carried a picture of Albert with her wherever she went, after his death (though it probably wasn’t stuck to the lining of her coat with a nail or old sticking plasters), and she also went a little – how shall I put it? – odd. That’s it: odd.

  For example, although Albert was dead and buried and not sleeping in his bed, let alone using the chamber pot kept under it, she gave strict instructions that the chamber pot be cleaned every day. And who would dare argue with someone who ruled great big chunks of the world?

  Then, in 1887, she’d been on the throne for fifty years – except for when she nipped off it for reasons already outlined – and took part in huge celebrations to mark this ‘golden jubilee’. She had such a great time that she decided to get out and about more and have some FUN; which she did, pretty much for the rest of her life, which is how she came to be visiting the Gloaming estate and watching ‘Roomy’ (as she called Lord Rhome) and the gentlemen guests take part in the shoot.

  Because it’s all rather relevant to what’s about to happen (and I should know what’s about to happen because I’m the one who’s about to write about it), I think I should give over a few pages to telling you about some of the attempts and so-called attempts that had been made on the Queen’s life until then.

  In 1840, a chap called Oxford (not to be confused with the place called Oxford, which is unlikely because one was a person with the first name of Edward and the other was – and still is, I assume – a city in Oxfordshire, full of dreaming spires and tourists) shot at Victoria and Albert in their open carriage as they were making their way up Constitution Hill. He ended up in a lunatic asylum on the basis, no doubt, that anyone trying to kill the lovely monarch must have been mad.

  In 1842, a certain John Francis tried to kill the Queen not once, but twice. One day he shot at Victoria and Albert as they were trundling down the Mall – the long, straight road leading to and from Buckingham Palace – but his pistol didn’t fire properly. Because V & A were embarrassed at the idea of anyone wanting to shoot at them, they decided not to tell anybody … so the security measures weren’t tightened and this meant John Francis could take another pot shot at them the next day. This was very considerate of the royal couple and he took advantage of their kindness. The pistol worked this time, but Francis missed and he was caught.

  Just over a month later, another John tried to shoot the Queen or, at the very least, to get her attention. This was a boy called John William Bean and he’d probably have had better luck if his gun had contained more gunpowder and less tobacco. Nobody said that would-be assassins have to be smart.

  The next attack wasn’t until nearly thirty years later, which wasn’t surprising, what with Her Majesty staying at home moping for much of the time, rather than going out and about, making herself an easy target. It was 1872, and a young man named Arthur O’Connor pointed a gun at the Queen as she passed by in her carriage. One of Victoria’s many sons, also called Arthur, chased after O’Connor but Victoria’s ghillie, John Brown, reached him first and wrestled him to the ground.

  Brown – Scottish and hairy despite the lack of a Mac or Mc in front of his name, you will recall – not only got all the public credit and praise from the Queen but also £25 a year for life and a nice big gold medal (just the sort of shiny thing Even Madder Aunt Maud would have loved to have got her hands on). Prince Arthur thought this was jolly unfair because he’d been just as brave as Brown and all he got was a measly gold pin and a ‘what a good boy you are to your mummy’ kind of thank-you. O’Connor’s gun turned out not to have been loaded anyway.

  Then, in 1882, it was Brown’s turn to be pipped to the p
ost in the saving stakes. (That’s s-t-a-k-e-s, as opposed to s-t-e-a-k-s. ‘Saving steaks’ would suggest saving red meat, which would make no sense in this context whatsoever, so why bring it up? What do you mean I brought it up, not you? Oh, I see. You have a point there. Sorry. Never let it be said that I don’t apologise when I’m wrong.)

  Where was I? Aha! March 2nd, 1882. Windsor Railway Station, that’s where. The Queen’s carriage was waiting outside and a Mc – a Roderick McLean, to be precise – shot at it with real bullets in his gun and everything. John Brown saw this as a chance to be a hero again – and maybe even get another medal – but, unfortunately for him, he wasn’t the first to reach McLean and tackle him. No, sir. That honour went to a couple of Eton schoolboys who repeatedly hit Mr McLean with their rolled-up umbrellas until the authorities grabbed a hold of him and dragged him away.