Dubious Deeds

by Philip Ardagh

  ‘Then that is all right.’

  ‘Then that is, indeed, perfectly acceptable,’ said Abbot Po.

  ‘You monks have funny rules, don’t you?’ said Eddie, hurriedly adding: ‘No disrespect, Abbot.’

  ‘None taken,’ said Po. ‘You’re forgetting that our order was founded by Ethelbert the Funny.’

  A few moments later, Brother Hyams entered the monastery library. ‘It’s the sheep, Abbot Po!’ he said. ‘I’m afraid they’ve got out again.’

  *

  Just a few miles away, as the crow flies (if the crow is concentrating and hasn’t been sidetracked by a juicy worm he’s spotted far below, or been blown off course on to the misty moors) a Bertian monk by the name of Brother Guck was trudging his way up the ever-so-long driveway of a very impressive house indeed. He knocked on the door.

  No sooner had his knuckles left the wood than the door was flung wide open and the startled Bertian was confronted by an elderly woman playing the bagpipes. (Yup: b-a-g-p-i-p-e-s.)

  ‘What is it?’ she demanded, letting the bag deflate with a painful whine.

  ‘Sheep, madam,’ said Guck. ‘I am here about our sheep.’

  ‘Why would I wish to buy sheep?’ demanded Even Madder Aunt Maud – for, as you guessed, it was she – peering around the tall thin monk to see whether he had brought any samples of his wares with him.

  ‘I’m not selling them, madam,’ the young monk explained.

  ‘Good!’ said EMAM. ‘Because I found two perfectly good sheep grazing outside my cow this morning, so I now have more than enough.’

  ‘But those are the very sheep I’m referring to, madam,’ said Brother Guck, wondering what she’d meant by outside her cow. ‘They strayed from monastery land. They belong to the monastery. I am here to –’

  ‘Finders keepers!’ Eddie’s great-aunt stated with a haughty chuckle.

  ‘Whilst I’m here,’ the monk added hurriedly, ‘I should also mention a lost boy whom, we believe, is named Ned –’

  ‘Why didn’t you say so in the first place?’ said the elderly woman, throwing the bagpipes with great force into the fireplace. ‘You’re here about Ned?’

  ‘You know him?’ asked Guck. He and his fellow monks had been visiting various neighbouring properties to round up the sheep, but none of the others knew anything about a missing boy.

  ‘I certainly do! You’ve come to the right place,’ said Even Madder Aunt Maud. ‘He was like Moses in the bulrushes. Have you heard of him?’

  ‘I most certainly have, madam,’ said the monk.

  ‘He’s in the Bible, you know.’

  ‘I know,’ nodded the brother.

  ‘Then follow me!’ said the strange old lady, picking up what appeared to be a stuffed ferret or weasel or stoat off an occasional table.

  Slightly bemused – which is like puzzled but with fewer ‘z’s in it – Brother Guck followed the old lady through a large hall where he couldn’t fail to notice possibly one of the most hideous painted ceilings that he’d ever had the misfortune to clap eyes on: there was something frighteningly liver-sausagy about it all.

  They finally entered the kitchen where an ex-soldier was standing in a tin bath filled with vinegar, being scrubbed down by Mrs Dickens.

  ‘He’s here about young Ned,’ said Even Madder Aunt Maud.

  ‘Good morning, madam,’ Brother Guck said to Mrs Dickens.

  ‘Good morning,’ she replied, dipping a large brush into the iron tub and giving Ex-Private Drabb’s back another scrub.

  Even Madder Aunt Maud marched over to the drawer in which Baby Ned was peacefully sleeping.

  She picked him up and plonked him down in the arms of the startled monk.

  ‘There you go!’ she said. ‘One missing Ned safely returned to his rightful owner.’

  ‘There must be some mistake –’ Guck began.

  ‘You come to my door. You ask about a lost boy named Ned. I give you a found boy named Ned and you say there’s some mistake, is that it?’ she demanded, her voice rising to a grating pitch.

  ‘I … er –’

  ‘You lost a Ned. We found a Ned and you’re saying that they’re not one and the same? Hmmm? Is that it?’

  At that moment, Mad Uncle Jack ambled in through the back door (having slept and abluted in and around his dried-fish treehouse). ‘Who the devil are you, sir?’ he demanded. ‘And what are you doing with that bawling babe?’

  ‘He’s come to claim Ned,’ said Mrs Dickens above the howls.

  ‘Ned?’ asked MUJ.

  ‘That baby we found.’

  ‘Oh, him,’ said Mad Uncle Jack. ‘Good. Good. Now get off my land before I have you shot.’

  It was then that Brother Guck made a decision. He would forget about the two stray sheep that the bagpipe-playing woman had mentioned. He would forget about the other missing boy called Neddie, back at the monastery. He would try not to think about the poor man being given a vinegar bath and about the horrendous ceiling in the hallway. His number one priority in the whole wide world at that precise moment was to get this poor baby out of the madhouse.

  ‘Th-Thank you and good day,’ he said, then, cradling the crying child in his arms, made for the nearest exit … and found himself in a broom cupboard.

  ‘I suppose you think that’s funny?’ snapped Even Madder Aunt Maud.

  *

  Whilst Guck and a group of fellow monks were off scouring the surrounding countryside for the missing sheep, a visitor came to Lamberley Monastery.

  He was a stocky, swarthy man with eyes of such a dark brown that they were almost black. He had a large gold tooth at the front of his mouth and a large gold hooped earring in his right ear. He wore a red neckerchief with white spots around – you guessed it – his neck. If it wasn’t for the fact that he smelled strongly of horses, one might have supposed that he was a pirate. In truth, he was a gypsy.

  Gypsies used to be called gipcyans or gyptians because people thought that these travelling folk had originally come from Egypt. Many gypsies speak Romany, their own special language which is Indo-European (which means that it’s spoken across Europe and Asia as far as northern India), which makes things all the more confusing. This gypsy, however, was called Fudd, and had spent his entire life, man and boy, travelling around the British Isles.

  ‘I’m here about the boy who’s lost his memory,’ he told the monk who finally opened the door to the monastery gatehouse after it became clear that the gypsy wasn’t going to stop banging on it with his knobbly walking stick until somebody did something.

  The mention of ‘the boy’ got a speedy reaction, and it wasn’t long before Fudd was taken to see Abbot Po in his office.

  ‘By the Lord, you’re ugly!’ gasped Fudd when he laid eyes on the warty-nosed peg-toothed monk.

  ‘That’s no word of a lie,’ agreed Po from behind his desk, ‘which is fortunate for you, sir, because it means that I don’t judge you by appearances alone.’

  ‘Meaning?’ demanded Fudd, his eyes narrowing.

  ‘Meaning that there are those who won’t give a gypsy so much as the time of day,’ said Po.

  ‘But you’re a man of God!’ said Fudd. ‘It is your duty to like all men.’

  ‘And it’s because you’re in God’s house that I ask you to remove your cap, sir,’ said Po, quietly.

  The gypsy snatched his hat off the top of his head, mumbling an apology. He and the abbot had got off on the wrong foot.

  ‘Do, please, sit down,’ said Abbot Po, indicating towards one of the few comfortable chairs in the whole building.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the gypsy. ‘And I means no harm by my comments. I speaks my mind, that’s all.’

  ‘Admirable if you find someone beautiful, Mr –?’

  ‘Fudd,’ said Fudd.

  ‘Mr Fudd, but it’s probably best to bite your tongue if you meet someone as hideous as me. Not everyone would be so understanding.’

  Fudd grinned. ‘Speakin’ me mind has lost me a few teeth
over the years, but I gives as good as I get.’

  ‘I’m told you’re here about a boy?’

  ‘Yes. He went missing from our camp last week sometime.’

  Abbot Po leaned forward in his chair. ‘And what is the boy’s name?’ he asked.

  ‘’Tis Fabian, sir,’ said Fudd. ‘His mother’s choice.’

  ‘And you are the father?’

  ‘Lord, no,’ laughed Fudd. ‘I am their chief. Father to ’em all in a way though, I suppose. I also deals with all important business.’

  ‘And what could be more important than a missing child?’

  ‘’xactly!’ said Fudd. ‘When I heard your monks asking around about a child who’d lost his memory, I came straight here.’

  ‘Would you describe Fabian to me, please?’ he asked.

  Fudd was happy to. He described a boy of Eddie’s age, height and appearance. ‘He has eyes like saucers,’ he finished.

  This description of Fabian certainly sounded like the boy he knew as Neddie, but how could he be sure? And then there was the fact that the horse Neddie had been found with appeared to be a gentleman’s horse, and Eddie spoke like a little gentleman, not at all like Fudd.

  ‘Could you describe his horse?’ asked Po.

  The gypsy looked down at his lap and wrung his cap in his hands somewhat awkwardly. ‘You see, the thing is, sir, that he shouldn’t have had no horse with him …’ he said. ‘If you found Fabian with a horse, it weren’t his by rights.’

  ‘You’re suggesting that he’d stolen it?’

  ‘Now don’t get me wrong,’ said Fudd. ‘We gypsies have a bad reputation as horse thieves and it’s mostly unfounded … but, if Fabian takes a fancy to a steed, he sometimes feels the need to take it for himself, see?’

  ‘I see,’ said Po. He was about to have Neddie brought to his office when something else occurred to him. ‘His speech,’ he said. ‘How does Fabian speak?’

  ‘I’m not sure I follows you,’ said Fudd.

  ‘How does he sound? What kind of accent?’

  ‘Aha! I sees where you’re heading!’ said Fudd. ‘I should have said from the outset that the lad speaks real beautifully. He sounds as if he comes from the very best of society.’

  ‘But how did Fabian come to speak this way?’ the abbot asked with interest.

  ‘His mother, Hester, weren’t born a Romany,’ Fudd explained. ‘She’s an outsider who married into our family. A very well-to-do lady.’

  ‘Unusual,’ said Po, but he had no reason to doubt the man. He was now convinced that ‘Neddie’ was none other than Fabian. ‘We must reunite you with Fabian this instant.’

  And this is how Eddie, who still thought of himself as Neddie, now came to believe himself to be Fabian. Of course, he didn’t recognise Fudd when he was ushered into the office by Brother Pugh but, then again, he wouldn’t have recognised Florinda Dickens as his mother nor Laudanum Dickens as his father if they’d been standing there in the gypsy’s place.

  When Fudd looked up as Eddie entered the room, a flicker of surprise crossed his face, but Abbot Po was too busy looking at Eddie to notice.

  ‘Fabian!’ said the gypsy, giving Eddie a hug. ‘It’s good to see you. Remember me?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m afraid not, sir,’ said Eddie. ‘Are you my father?’

  ‘I’m not, but I’ll be taking you back to him,’ said Fudd, grinning his golden grin.

  Episode 8

  On the Case

  In which Fandango Jones helps the police with their enquiries

  Fandango Jones had been the one who’d volunteered to bicycle to the police station to report his suspicions about the chimney hitting Eddie’s father being a case of attempted murder. He also agreed to report Eddie’s own disappearance whilst he was at it. But what everyone had forgotten about in the excitement – what with Gibbering Jane being so good at looking after him – was Baby Ned (or whatever his real name was). Had Fandango mentioned his being found in the bulrushes, the baby would probably have been looked after by some local orphanage and not ended up being taken by Brother Guck. So, as things turned out, it’s lucky that what Jones was really interested in was playing detective with a real live one.

  Those of you familiar with the Eddie Dickens Trilogy will also be familiar with the figure of the detective inspector. In the three previous books in which he’s appeared, he’s only ever been described as being ‘the inspector’ or ‘the detective inspector’. This was for legal reasons which have been dragging on and on and on and on down the years. Now that these have been resolved, I’m happy to give you his full name: Detective Inspector Humphrey Bunyon.

  Now there were two very distinct things about the detective inspector. No, come to think of it, there were three: one – in no particular order – was that he was prone to repeat what the previous person had just said but, often in such a way that it made a strange kind of sense; two, he couldn’t read (which wasn’t uncommon at the time, but was more uncommon amongst detective inspectors); and, three, he had a very large tummy indeed. It was gigantic, and looked even more so because of the loud checked suits he always wore.

  Well, amazingly, although one (his repetition) and two (his illiteracy) still applied when Fandango Jones went to spit at him that day, number three was no longer true. Detective Inspector Humphrey Bunyon had been on the ultimate diet – locked in a trunk by a gang of purse snatchers and cut-throats for nearly a month – so was now remarkably slim. This wouldn’t have been a problem if the policeman hadn’t intended to put the weight back on – he loved his food – so hadn’t bothered to buy himself any new clothes. His old ones hung off him like … like … Well, he looked like a thin man in fat man’s clothing.

  When the engineer managed to get past the desk sergeant (who was proudly trying out a set of newfangled handcuffs on himself) he was shocked by the sight of the detective in his extraordinarily baggy clothing.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Jones.

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Are you the detective inspector?’ asked Jones.

  ‘The detective inspector,’ nodded Humphrey Bunyon.

  ‘My name is Fandango Jones, the fairly well-known engineer –’

  ‘Fandango Jones, the fairly well-known engineer,’ the policeman nodded.

  ‘Perhaps you’ve heard of me?’ said Jones.

  ‘Heard of you,’ nodded the detective inspector.

  ‘Excellent!’ said Jones, trying not to be distracted by just how strange Bunyon looked with the folds of clothes hanging off him, like the loose skin of a rhinoceros.

  ‘Excellent,’ agreed the inspector. ‘Why are you here, Mr Jones?’ The policeman was seated behind a large desk. In the past, he’d found it difficult to reach for items on his desk because his stomach had kept him more than arm’s length away from it. Since he’d escaped from the evil clutches of the Smiley Gang, though, he now found life behind his desk much easier. He picked up a buff-coloured folder, not to read (he didn’t know how to, remember) but to use as some form of protection against this spitting man.

  ‘I believe that my current employer’s nephew has been the victim of an attempted murder!’

  ‘Attempted murder?’

  ‘Attempted murder!’ Jones spat.

  ‘Attempted murder? Hmmmm,’ said the inspector. ‘Please go on.’

  Fandango Jones sat on the only chair in the room (Inspector Bunyon was using a pile of books). ‘I am currently constructing a bridge at Awful End,’ he said. The policeman said nothing. His face dropped at the very mention of the place. ‘My employer’s name is Mad Mr Jack Dickens and –’

  The detective inspector put up his hand for silence. ‘Unfortunately,’ he sighed, ‘I am familiar with the Dickens household. Do go on.’

  So Fandango Jones told him his sorry tale.

  Detective Inspector Humphrey Bunyon listened in silence. He was a very good detective inspector and would occasionally interrupt with a question.

  When Fandango Jones had finished, the
policeman got to his feet, his laughably large clothes making him look like a half-deflated hot-air balloon. ‘I do believe you’re right,’ he said.

  ‘Right?’ spat the engineer.

  ‘Right that a person or persons deliberately dropped the chimney on to the gathering below and that Mr Dickens may or may not have been the intended target. And right that Master Edmund Dickens’s disappearance may somehow be connected to the affair.’

  Fandango Jones glowed with such pride that a piece of his spit which had settled on his chin sizzled in the heat that such a glow can generate.

  ‘So what do you intend to do about it?’ he asked.

  ‘Do about it?’

  ‘Do about it.’ Jones nodded, his two-tier stovepipe hat wobbling under the strain. Fandango Jones was not a man to take his hat off indoors; especially not one as heavy as this.

  ‘I intend to make immediate enquiries!’ said the inspector. He crossed the floor, opened the door to his office and called for his desk sergeant.

  ‘Yes sir?’ said the sergeant, entering the room with a somewhat sheepish expression on his face.

  ‘Round up a few constables! I’m going to Awful End.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ said the sergeant but, rather than turning and leaving the room sharpish, he stood with his back to Jones and spoke to the inspector in almost a whisper. ‘Only there’s something I need to ask you first, sir.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked the inspector.

  ‘Keys, sir.’

  ‘Keys?’

  ‘Keys … to these handcuffs. You wouldn’t happen to have them, would you?’

  It was only then, using his police-enhanced powers of observation, that the detective inspector noticed his desk sergeant had managed to lock his wrists together with his own handcuffs.

  *

  With Fabian … I mean Neddie … I mean Eddie now convinced that he was part of Fudd’s band of gypsies, he asked if he could say goodbye to Horsey (whose name he didn’t know either), because it was agreed that the animal should stay at the monastery whilst the monks tried to find his ‘rightful owner’. Eddie felt strange leaving behind the one link he had with his arrival at the monastery. He went with Abbot Po and the gypsy chief, Fudd, to the stables.