Dubious Deeds

by Philip Ardagh

  So, with all these attempted assassinations in mind, let us return to the springy heather on the Gloaming estate where rather a lot of people – a number of whom weren’t big fans of the English in general and the English monarch in particular – were wandering around carrying BIG RIFLES. It wouldn’t be spoiling the action to say that not all of them had shooting deer in mind.

  The start of the shoot did not go well for Lord Rhome. The deer seemed to be hiding, which wasn’t cricket. Of course, the game of cricket has little to do with shooting deer – except that both were enjoyed by the ruling classes – but ‘not cricket’ is a phrase. It means not playing by the rules. And, as far as Lord Rhome was concerned, the deer should have been darting about in the open where he could shoot at them; not keeping a low profile. Had the deer themselves been familiar with the phrase, perhaps they’d have thought that what wasn’t cricket was these nasty men wanting to shoot them!

  If steam really could come out of people’s ears, like it does in cartoons when people are about to explode with rage, it’d certainly have been coming out of both of Lord Rhome’s (in a very impressive fashion). He was very frustrated, but trying to remain the perfect host in front of the most important guest he could ever hope to have on the Gloaming estate.

  ‘Cooo-Eeee!’ called a voice, and Rhome turned to see two complete strangers stomping purposefully across the heather towards them. Both appeared elderly. One – a man – was ridiculously thin and seemed to have large fern-like leaves sticking out of every pocket. The other – the woman who had ‘Cooo-Eeee’-ed – was clutching what looked like a stuffed ferret or somesuch thing.

  ‘Sorry we’re late,’ said the man.

  ‘And who, sir, are you?’ demanded Rhome.

  Mad Uncle Jack (for, yes, it was indeed he and Even Madder Aunt Maud who’d put in a late appearance in this adventure) pushed aside the large leaf protruding from the top pocket of his jacket, which had been partially obscuring his beakiest of beaky noses. ‘Didn’t recognise me with my camouflage, huh?’ he chortled. ‘I wanted to blend in with the local scenery.’

  ‘Who the devil are you, sir?’ demanded Lord Rhome, which was fair enough considering that the reason he didn’t recognise Mad Uncle Jack had less to do with the ‘camouflage’ and more to do with the fact that, until that moment, the two men had never met in their entire lives.

  There was frantic whispering going on between those surrounding Queen Victoria. There had obviously been a serious breach in security if this strange pair had managed to get in stuffed-stoat-throwing distance of Her Majesty.

  One of the many famous things about Queen Victoria was that, no matter where she was, she never looked behind her when she sat down. What I mean is, she never had to look behind her to check that there was something to sit on. Wherever she was, there was always a servant ready to slip a chair (usually her throne, I’d imagine) beneath the royal behind.

  As Even Madder Aunt Maud came striding towards her now, skirt hitched high and shouting, ‘Hello there, Queenie!’ Victoria sat down with surprise. An even bigger surprise was that she found herself sitting on nothing and then ended up on the ground with quite a thud.

  The man who had been holding the chair had abandoned his post in order to keep the frightening woman away from his beloved queen. He was now being prodded with Malcolm’s nose for his pains.

  Talking of pains, how was Her Majesty? Fine. It wasn’t the contact between bottom and ground that had shocked her, or even the loss of dignity. It was the fact that for the first time in her entire reign she’d gone to sit down and there hadn’t been a chair. It was like the sky suddenly turning green, or water suddenly flowing uphill. Such things just didn’t happen.

  ‘Quite extraordinary,’ she was muttering as she was helped to her feet. ‘Quite remarkable.’

  ‘The last of the MacMuckles!’ shouted a running man in livery, appearing from the direction in which Mad Uncle Jack and Even Madder Aunt Maud had just appeared.

  A startled look crossed the faces of a number of the gun-carriers who were accompanying the royal party on the shoot; including a small, red-bearded chap who looked very keen to punch anybody and everybody on the nose.

  The Sergeant-at-Arms stepped forward to confront the running man whilst Mr Digg and Mr Delve, plus the Q-PUS and various others, created a protective ring of people around the Queen.

  ‘This lady and gentleman are the Dickenses,’ the man explained. ‘Mrs Dickens is the last of the MacMuckles of Tall Hall by the MacMuckle Falls … They are late invitees, and wouldn’t wait for me to accompany them up here.’

  ‘Aha!’ said Lord Rhome at the mention of Tall Hall. He’d been listening in on the conversation. Now it all made sense. This beaky man was a gentleman and a landowner and that made all the difference. He shook Mad Uncle Jack’s hand. ‘Welcome,’ he said.

  ‘I like your hat,’ said Mad Uncle Jack.

  ‘Er, thank you,’ responded Lord Rhome, who wasn’t actually wearing one.

  Even Madder Aunt Maud, meanwhile, was trying to speak to Victoria through the legs of those standing between her and the Queen.

  ‘Ow, come on out, you know you love me!’ she said teasingly.

  For those of you shocked by her obvious lack of respect and deference towards Her Majesty, I should make it clear that Even Madder Aunt Maud had mistaken Victoria for someone else. You may find this hard to believe, particularly when she greeted the Queen with a cheery ‘Hullo there, Queenie!’ but therein lies a clue. When Even Madder Aunt Maud was still plain Mad Aunt Maud, she’d had a friend named Charlotte Hailstrom who bore a striking resemblance to Victoria and had, as a result, earned the nickname ‘Queenie’. Unfortunately, this meant that Queen Victoria bore a striking resemblance to Charlotte Hailstrom and, having never met HM before and having not seen Charlotte for many years, Even Madder Aunt Maud simply assumed that she was her old friend Queenie.

  Of course, Queen Victoria had no way of knowing this and, on top of still recovering from the shock of sitting down on nothing more than thin air, was hoping beyond hope that someone would make the worrying woman go away!

  Now, let me freeze the action as only an author can – or a reader too, if you simply stop reading; that’s one of the great things about books – and explain how MUJ and EMAM come to be here right at the end of this first Further Adventure.

  It’s simple really. Had they been at Tall Hall when the Q-PUS had sent out the invitations on Angus McFeeeeeeee’s recommendations, they’d automatically have been invited but, in their absence, Eddie had been invited to the evening reception in their place. When McFeeeeeeee had written to Mad Uncle Jack about the bunch of people living in Tall Hall, claiming to be not only MacMuckles but also its rightful owners, Mad Uncle Jack had changed his plans and decided to come up to Scotland after all. McFeeeeeeee had then informed the Q-PUS who, in turn, had arranged an invitation for ‘Mad Mr Dickens’ to attend the shoot and reception with his wife.

  What had McFeeeeeeee been thinking? He had no excuse. He’d met them before! He knew what they were like … and, yet, here they were.

  ‘Stag!’ went up a cry, bringing us firmly back into the action.

  Suddenly, all thoughts of strange latecomers were forgotten. Now, at long last, Lord Rhome might have the chance to shoot some deer.

  The beast – large red and antlered – was some way off and appeared to be staring straight at the shooting party with unblinking eyes. It had emerged from behind a rocky outcrop.

  The small, red-bearded Scot, whom Eddie had known as Hamish MacMuckle, stepped forward and handed Lord Rhome a rifle.

  ‘Murder!’ cried a voice. ‘Kidnap!’ and Eddie Dickens came into view, being chased by a swarm of policemen.

  The stag disappeared behind the rock again, and Lord Rhome fumed once more. ‘Piccadilly Circus!’ he groaned. ‘This is busier than Piccadilly Circus!’

  Episode 11

  Thwarted Plots!

  In which Eddie is both wrong and right and Malcolm pl
ays his part

  It was fortunate for Eddie that his great-aunt and great-uncle were on the scene when he arrived. They were able to confirm his identity and to avoid him being wrestled to the ground, or worse, as a possible would-be assassin.

  ‘Her Majesty’s life is in terrible danger!’ Eddie shouted, trying to escape the police sheep snapping at his ankles.

  He – What do you mean, ‘What are police sheep?’ Oh, good point. Let me clear this one up as quickly as possible so that we can move on. There’s something called distemper which is a type of water-based paint, but ignore that. There’s something else called distemper which is, according to Old Roxbee’s Book of Doggy Ailments, ‘a highly contagious viral disease involving a high fever and yucky gunky stuff coming from the nose and eyes’. At least, canine distemper is, and that’s what all the local police dogs were suffering from at the time, so the police had quickly trained up some of the local sheep.

  Before you start muttering, ‘I don’t believe a word of it!’ and go off and play with your own stuffed stoat in the corner of your hollow cow or dried-fish treehouse, I should like to point out that it’s quite common for people to keep sheep as pets and that, once treated like a dog, they start behaving very much like them too. Constable Jock McGlock, whose job it had been to train the five police sheep, was delighted with how they’d responded, but trying to catch Eddie Dickens had been the first real test.

  ‘The MacMuckles aren’t MacMuckles. They’ve got somebody locked in the cellar and they’re planning to shoot the Queen with some special rifle,’ shouted Eddie, between gasps for air, as he fell to the heathery ground. That had been one long run from Tall Hall to the shooting party.

  ‘Hello, young Edmund,’ said Mad Uncle Jack looking down at his great-nephew. ‘Is that a recent haircut?’

  Fortunately, Mr Digg and Mr Delve stepped in and asked Eddie to explain himself as soon as possible.

  As Eddie spoke, he looked around and his eyes widened. There were Mad Uncle Jack and Even Madder Aunt Maud (with Malcolm), Queen Victoria and her entourage, and various well-to-do men there for the shooting and their well-to-do wives standing around watching … and then there were those obviously there to assist, with guns, ammunition, refreshing drinkies and the like. What made them stand out from the others were that they were in Scottish dress and very hairy and … and one of them was so-called Hamish.

  ‘Arrest that man!’ shouted Eddie. ‘He’s one of the gang.’

  Little Hamish put up a good fight. He managed to bop several people on the nose, including himself, and even managed to bite one of the sheep’s legs but, much to the pride of Jock McGlock, the sheep gave as good as it got and bit him back. (The truth be told, Eddie was secretly quite proud of both of them; what with neither of them being an actual meat-eater!)

  ‘Wait!’ bellowed a voice in the distance, and the stag reappeared from behind the rocky outcrop. It started ambling down the hillside towards them.

  As it got nearer it became obvious that this was no ‘monarch of the glen’ but more of a deer-coloured pantomime horse with a pair of antlers added.

  It stopped and the front part lifted off its head. Inside was the man Eddie knew as Alexander MacMuckle, Clan Chief. Despite his comic bottom half, he still made an imposing figure.

  Now the back half of the stag separated from the front and stood up. This was Iain-with-two-‘i’s-unlike-that-Englishman-Lord-Nelson ‘MacMuckle’.

  Anyone holding a rifle was now pointing it at the pair of them.

  ‘Will somebody please tell me what’s going on?’ groaned Lord Rhome, for whom one thing was certain beyond a shadow of a doubt: Queen Victoria would never accept an invitation from him ever again.

  ‘We’ll not leave brave wee Hamish to face you on his own,’ boomed Alexander. And then explain he did.

  The MacMuckles at Tall Hall were not MacMuckles at all. That was true enough, but they weren’t out to harm the Queen or anyone else for that matter. Quite the opposite, in fact. Their mission was to prevent harm … to the animals.

  As a dedicated group of vegetarian animal-lovers, they had pretended to be MacMuckles and rightful heirs to Tall Hall so that they could set up there as part of a plan to save the animals from being shot for sport on the neighbouring Gloaming estate. (At this stage of the telling, Alexander glared at Lord Rhome.) As the English lord wasn’t a regular visitor to his Scottish home, they thought they’d have time to develop their plans, until news of the Queen’s visit and the shooting party changed everything. They’d already enlisted the help of young Magnus McFeeeeeeee, who was eager to be a party to anything which might upset an English lord, and now he had the added bonus of ‘getting one over the English Queen’.

  Over the previous few nights they’d been rounding up the deer and wild goats and any other creatures on the Gloaming estate that they feared Lord Rhome and the shooting party might try to kill and had led them all down into the huge cellar under Tall Hall. Although Alexander, Iain, Hamish, Martha, Nelly and Roberta really were vegetarians, much of the fruit and vegetables Eddie had seen being prepared in the kitchens had been to feed the animals.

  Once the animals were safe, they’d wanted to find a way to deflect suspicion so that their scheme wouldn’t be rumbled even before it had got off the ground. Then they’d found the body of a fine stag in a rocky crevice, which must have somehow lost its footing and fallen to its death. This was when Alexander’d had his brilliant idea: he and Iain would run around dressed as a stag and Lord Rhome would then shoot ‘it’. By the time the shooting party reached the spot, though, all they’d find was the body of the already-dead stag.

  ‘You were willing to be shot yourself in place of an animal?’ said Mr Digg.

  ‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ said Mr Delve.

  ‘Then look at Lord Rhome’s weapon, man,’ said Alexander, indignantly.

  This was the hunting rifle little, hairy Hamish had been holding. They soon discovered that it had been adapted to fire nothing more than blanks. So the whole plan had depended on Lord Rhome shooting the pantomime stag with his doctored weapon. If anyone else had fired real ammunition …

  Eddie thought back to the conversation between Martha and Nelly and their fears that Scottish blood might be spilled. No wonder they’d been worried. This had been a risky plan!

  Alexander and the others had obviously been relying on the fact that the only person who could pull rank on His Lordship was the Queen and, as I pointed out before, she never shot at living things herself.

  Whilst everyone else had been gripped in fascination as Alexander explained their failed scheme, still dressed as the front end of a stag with the head tucked underneath his arm, Even Madder Aunt Maud had been showing Malcolm the heather. Now she came upon the huge bearded man quite by chance.

  ‘Oh, hello, Alexander,’ she said absent-mindedly. ‘How’s your sister Martha?’

  Alexander grunted some form of acknowledgement through his mighty Scottish beard.

  ‘You know these people?’ gasped Eddie.

  ‘Of course. He’s Alexander McMickle and there’s Iain with three feet.’

  ‘Two ‘i’s,’ Iain McMickle corrected her. ‘Good afternoon, Mad Miss Maud MacMuckle.’

  ‘Who are they?’ demanded Mr Digg and Mr Delve.

  ‘The McMickles? Loyal servants to the MacMuckles for generations,’ said Even Madder Aunt Maud, moving on, ‘until my father had some argument with them over a missing egg-spoon and had them all banished from the district.’ She was now showing Malcolm a passing bumblebee.

  ‘Take them away!’ sighed Mr Delve, and the policemen (and sheep) that had swarmed up the hillside after Eddie now went down the hillside with Alexander, Iain and Hamish McMickle in custody.

  ‘What will you charge them with?’ Eddie asked Mr Digg, as they watched them go.

  ‘Stealing my animals, trespass and impersonating a stag, if I have anything to do with it!’ fumed Lord Rhome.

  ‘I feel so stupid,’ said Edd
ie. ‘I thought they were going to try to harm Her Majesty.’

  ‘Better safe than sorry, ay?’ said Mr Delve.

  But, underneath it all, Eddie couldn’t help admiring the McMickles for what they’d tried to do.

  *

  Nobody could deny that Eddie had been wrong about the so-called MacMuckles, or the McMickles, as they’d turned out to be called – and I should probably point out that ‘Many a McMickle does not a MacMuckle make’, just to get it out of my system – but I don’t want you to go away with the misconception that there wasn’t a foiled attempt on Queen Victoria’s life that day. There was.

  Once the men-dressed-as-deer scam had been revealed, and explained to everyone’s satisfaction, no one was quite sure what to do. Lord Rhome was all for having the animals let out of the cellar and shot anyway, but the Queen was appalled at the idea and said so in no uncertain terms. He had been about to suggest that they let loose the police sheep and shoot at them, but decided against it.

  ‘We could dig for truffles,’ Even Madder Aunt Maud suggested, thrusting Malcolm into Eddie’s arms and throwing herself to the ground, digging in a patch of earth between the clumps of heather. It reminded Eddie of her once digging for a shiny thing in a snowdrift.

  Embarrassed as only a child can be by the behaviour of his or her relative, Eddie stood in front of her in the hope that he was blocking her from Queen Victoria’s view.

  Mad Uncle Jack, meanwhile, was deep in conversation with a man with an impressively twirly moustache. It was a very one-sided conversation, with the man doing little more than grunting and nodding.