Beware The Peckish Dead!

by William Stafford

  The old man let out a cry, his hand raised like a drowning man engulfed by hungry waves. Cassie answered his call. She came bounding along the path and hurled herself into the fray.

  “Cassie, no!” I cried. “Cassie, heel!”

  But the dog was deaf to my entreaties, focussed as she was on saving her old master. In a heap, dog, master, Peckish Dead and all tumbled into the Hole and disappeared.

  There followed a couple of minutes of silence and stillness while we worked out what had happened. Wordlessly, we blinked at each other.

  The plan had worked.

  The Peckish Dead were gone.

  But so was Cassie. And my heart felt sorely charged.

  It was Laird Baird who spoke first. “Well, I suppose I shan’t be needing this any longer.”

  Without warning, he reached under his kilt and pulled out a curly, pink tube. He threw it into a bush.

  “Cumberland sausage,” he shrugged. “Just in case.”

  Someone thinks highly of himself, I thought.

  “Hector...” Miss Lindquist’s voice was shaking. I saw the cause at once.

  Drownded Ned was still very much with us.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The dead boy followed us back to the house. It seems strange to put it like that but he sort of drifted along behind us, his feet not touching the ground. Miss Lindquist hooked her arm through mine and whispered.

  “I am thinking you are having an admirer.”

  I stiffened - but not in a way that would do her any good. “Miss Lindquist, in case you haven’t fathomed it by now, I am not of that temperament.”

  She laughed. “It is not being me, you silly goose.”

  She jerked her head in a backwards direction. I turned to see the woeful wraith. Drownded Ned offered up a little smile and a wave.

  “Good Lord!” I exclaimed. “So that’s why the beggar wouldn’t leave me alone.”

  “He is finding in you a kindred spirit.”

  “I think you will find, Miss Lindquist, that I made that joke several pages earlier.”

  She swatted at my chest. “Oh, Hector! I am seeing you are already writing this story as a book.”

  “It’s my profession! I shall have to tone down some of the more extraordinary elements, of course.”

  “Why so? The extraordinary has never been stopping you before!” She laughed again. My eyes narrowed.

  “Is that literary criticism, Miss Lindquist? I should forego it, if I were you, and stick to - whatever it is you do.”

  This only served to make her laugh all the more.

  In Laird Baird’s library, Ranulf Lindquist was scrutinising charts and calculations.

  “Well?” His Lordship was anxiously pacing with a decanter of whisky in one hand and a tumbler in the other. “Where did they go?”

  Lindquist pulled a face. “As far as I can make out... the Hole has taken them back to the age of dinosaurs. Your peckish friends will have plenty to nibble on back there.”

  “But will they be coming back again, Poppa?” Miss Lindquist fretted. She cast a nervous glance at the window outside which Drownded Ned continued to hover.

  “I should think it highly unlikely,” Lindquist squeezed his daughter’s upper arms. “Unless they stumble into the Hole again - but the chances of them being in the right place at the right time are minuscule. Negligible.”

  “Hold on,” I piped up. “What about Nessie? She seems able to pop in and out with something approaching regularity.”

  Laird Baird emitted an exasperated tut as though the point I raised was unworthy of an idiot child. “Because, Mortlake,” he leaned on my name with undisguised disgust, “The creature is evidently one of habit. A cow put out to pasture will favour the same routine and so Nessie’s grazing habits will periodically bring her back to the same hunting grounds.”

  “So,” I looked the old coot squarely in the face, “What is she? A hunter or a gatherer?”

  His Lordship turned red. “That is not the point!” he roared, coming quickly to the boil. I allowed myself a smirk of satisfaction.

  “The point is,” Ranulf Lindquist remained the calm voice in the discussion, “The odds of those children finding their way back - well, I wouldn’t waste any of my money betting on it.”

  “I suppose there is nothing to be done about it. Save raising our glasses to Auld Jock Hitchin. And to-” the word caught in my throat, “Cassie.”

  Laird Baird coughed; he didn’t like agreeing with my proposal.

  With the toast over and done, Ranulf Lindquist suggested he and his daughter turn in. They would have an early start in the morning for the first leg of their journey to Egypt - there was a tomb there, the last resting place of Nort-Ist-Hep, still awaiting discovery, brimming with untold riches.

  “Do not be being concerned, Hector,” Miss Lindquist stroked my cheek. “I shall be stopping off at the British Library to be returning that book.”

  I smiled at her and shook her hand. Not a bad old stick, I reflected.

  “And you must be visiting us! You could be doing a spot of troll-hunting! It is being such silly fun!”

  I thanked her, even kissed the back of her bally hand, but I told her my immediate and foreseeable future would be occupied with the penning of my next book.

  “Yes,” Laird Baird sneered, “You will have plenty of time for scribbling your execrable nonsense - behind bars!”

  Everyone gasped. I found myself staring down the business end of his blasted blunderbuss.

  I put up my hands.

  “But why?” Miss Lindquist cried. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because,” Laird Baird’s face - no oil painting to begin with - contorted into a mask of hatred, “Of what this degenerate has been up to with my grandson. Oh, I gave you a chance, Mortlake, a chance to bring my grandson back from that bloody hole, but you have singularly failed. But you shall not escape the full force of the law.”

  He motioned me toward a high-backed armchair. I had no choice but to comply. Keeping my hands in the air, I edged sideways and took a seat.

  “It is late,” said Lindquist. “We are all tired. Let us have some rest and discuss this with clearer heads in the morning.”

  “Balls to that!” roared Laird Baird. Miss Lindquist gasped. “My apologies, Miss. If you would forgive me and then be so kind as to give the bell pull a tug to summon Berryman, whom I shall instruct to rouse the police.”

  Miss Lindquist looked at me with uncertainty twisting her mouth.

  “Dash it all!” I stood. “I couldn’t get your grandson out of that bloody hole, as you call it, because he never bloody went in!” A nod to Constance, “My apologies, too.”

  “Furthermore,” said a voice from the doorway, “I ain’t even your bleedin’ grandson.”

  Our heads turned as though ruled by one mind.

  Cuthbert!

  ***

  Cuthbert Reveals All

  Blimey! You could at least look pleased to see me. Come here and give’s a kiss. The old man won’t mind now he knows I ain’t his grandson; will you, Your Lordship?

  Sorry about the deception and all that, but it was necessary to get me into the house. Also necessary was to get you lot out of it, on a wild ghost chase, you might say, so I could have the run of the place.

  Your grandson, I am sorry to say, is brown bread. Dead. I met him on his travels - he was back from prospecting for diamonds in Africa and he was gravely ill. I was with him at the end and he told me everything. Enough to enable me to pass myself off as him - I fooled the staff and that was the point. He told me, you see, he thought they was ripping you off. Fiddling the accounts. That Sally whosit in the kitchen - well, it wasn’t only haggis she was cooking. She had a secret recipe for the books and all. They’re all in it
, up to their eyes. The butler, the gamekeeper, the candle-snuffer-outerer. The lot.

  I had to get proof, you see. Remember this, Hector? The plan of the house? Well, I used all the secret passages to hide in and snoop around. I heard some things, I can tell you.

  Your Lordship, when you restock your wine cellar, you’re getting billed for twice the bottles. What you think is the dearest, rarest vintage is just some old plonk, a step away from vinegar, with a new label slapped on it. Of course, you never touch the stuff; you’re always knocking back the whisky. Them paintings you’re so proud of? Fakes! The bleedin’ lot! Some of them still wet in their frames. They’ve been systematically swapping them out. Auld Jock whatsit was quite the dab hand at art forgery - but then the Peckish Dead took some of his fingers and he couldn’t do that no more. Which explains why his croft was full of paints and brushes.

  Your Lordship, your staff have been leaching off you for donkeys’. Chipping away but not so much that you’d notice. They’ve been building themselves quite a nest-egg, I can tell you. Some of them done it out of self-preservation. They was worried with you getting on in years and heirless, the house would have to be sold off and them put out of a job.

  Some of them are just bleedin’ crooks.

  I can see you’re turning a shade of red a pillar-box would be proud of, but hold your horses for just a moment longer. Here are the books - one set they keep for you, and another they keep squirreled away in Mrs Forth’s pantry. It’s why she won’t let nobody go in there. She almost caught me; I heard her telling that butler how she thought there was something in the pantry, someone watching her. Check the figures, the dates; it’s all there in red, white and blue.

  I would have come sooner but taking into account how you treated your grandson while he was here, and you being the reason he ran off in the first place, I thought Let the old goose stew for a bit longer. But since me and the boss just happened to be in the area, I thought it was about time I did right by your Cuthbert, like I promised him when he squeezed my hand for the final time.

  Hector, I had to make you think I disappeared so it would keep you busy and allow me to get on with my investigation without distraction. I’m sorry, I truly am, if you was upset, but I knew you wouldn’t rest until you’d done your utmost to find me again.

  How I did it was an old trick I picked up from my days in New York. You’ll remember my old China in the theatre. It’s how they made the fairies disappear in A Midsummer Night’s Wossname. One side of their capes was all shimmery and shiny and the other was painted to match the set. One quick swish and poof! There they was: gone!

  Lucky that dog showed up when it did, to keep you busy. For one moment I thought it was going to sniff me out while I was curled up on the ground, waiting for you to clear off. I thought it was going to piddle on me and then the jig would be up.

  Miss Lindquist, it’s a pleasure to meet you at last. I’m really glad my old man was able to help you find yours. I can’t wait to hear how he done it. Knowing my Hector, I bet it was spectacular.

  Mr Lindquist, an honour, sir. Glad it’s all worked out and you’re back safe and sound.

  Well, Your Lordship, I expect you’ll be wanting to call your staff and give them their marching orders. But before you do, do me a favour. Get them to make me a cup of tea, will you? I’m bleedin’ parched.

  Chapter Twenty

  Cuthbert’s account caused a sensation - several of them, in fact, and most of them had a profound effect on Laird Baird, whose face turned a gamut of colours before draining of them completely.

  “Can this be true?” he charged his tumbler. “Can any of this be true?”

  “True as I’m standing here,” said Cuthbert.

  “Then tell me why I shouldn’t have you hauled away by the constabulary, along with my entire household and yonder pervert acquaintance of yours.”

  “Here!” Cuthbert cried. “I done you a favour, you ungrateful old basket.”

  I put a hand on Cuthbert’s arm to restrain him from assaulting the old coot. I had thought I’d never touch those rippling muscles again.

  The Lindquists excused themselves and retired to their beds. They had had enough of the floor show for one night. The three of us, Laird Baird, Cuthbert and I, stood around a table and glared at each other.

  “Dear, oh dear,” said Cuthbert. “We seem to have reached a bit of a demon’s bum.”

  “You mean ‘impasse’,” I corrected him. “Your Lordship - Jonathan” I attempted to appeal to his better nature - presuming he had one, “My valet has done you valuable service. That he had to deceive you in order to achieve it was a necessary part of the process. As for myself, I bear you no ill will or animosity.”

  “Big of you!” Laird Baird snapped. “I hope they throw the key away.”

  Before I could utter further entreaties, His Lordship looked even more pained than usual. Stricken, in fact.

  “My arm!” he cried, clutching at his left wrist. “My chest!”

  It must have been serious: he dropped his whisky.

  Cuthbert hurried to his aid and lay him on his back on the table. By this point, Laird Baird was croaking for breath, his eyes rolling wildly.

  “It’s his heart!” Cuthbert diagnosed. “Ring for help!”

  I hesitated. Dark thoughts rooted me to the spot. With Laird Baird out of the picture, there would be no court case, no tiresome trial, and no public scandal...

  “Hector!” Cuthbert cried, loosening His Lordship’s clothing in a violent manner that gave me a pang of envy.

  I shook myself out of my reverie and tugged on the bell-pull. Cuthbert continued his ministrations, beating the old man’s chest and blowing into his mouth. I shuddered to witness it.

  No one came. Perhaps Berryman had got wind that his cat was up and the jig was cooked and the goose was out of the pigeons - oh, I could not think straight.

  Thanks to Cuthbert, Laird Baird revived a little, but he was clearly not out of the woods yet. A low moan came, but not from him or from Cuthbert and it certainly was not from me. It was from the window. Drownded Ned was still out there, watching and waiting.

  “Not now, Ned!” I flapped at him but his moaning persisted. It brought to mind dear Cassie who used to make noises like that in order to be let out. It struck me that the ghostly youth wished to be let in. I hesitated at the latch. Without the Peckish Dead, I reasoned, Drownded Ned presented no danger. I opened the window and beckoned him in with a sweep of my arm.

  He didn’t come in. Rather, he stepped (floated) aside and a tiny sphere of light flew in instead. No bigger than a golf ball, it made a beeline for the table and the old man prostrate upon it. The ball hovered over his head where he could see it. A soft tinkling emitted from it.

  Laird Baird smiled and his features smoothed out with inner peace.

  “Merridew!” he whispered with his final breath.

  The sphere glowed brighter and shot out of the window like a bullet.

  “What the bleedin’ hell-” gasped Cuthbert. We rushed to the window. Drownded Ned pointed at the lawn below. The dawn was breaking and a shallow mist was suspended over the grass.

  Two figures were dancing away from the house. One was sylphlike, her garments fashioned from fog and her hair as green as a conifer.

  The other was a seven-year-old schoolboy.

  ***

  Cuthbert and I said farewell to Drownded Ned. He looked sad to see us go but, on the whole, not as sorrowful as he was wont to be. After all, he had a whopping great estate to haunt all by himself. The staff had absconded, with as much silverware and as many objets d’art as they could carry. Baird Hall stood empty, save for its resident lonely ghost.

  At least he was free of the Peckish Dead. From that day onward, though, whenever I visit a museum and see statuary from antiquity - you know the sort, all blank
-eyed and with bits missing - I am reminded of those lost boys. Perhaps they had worked their way to Ancient Greece and those statues were accurate representations of their victims.

  “Perhaps he’ll meet somebody,” said Cuthbert. “Somebody who ain’t a writer who is already bleedin’ spoken for...”

  I blushed to be reminded of my kiss with Drownded Ned.

  We were heading to the station for a train to Glasgow where Bessie awaited a reunion. “Some nice young bloke,” Cuthbert continued, “He can scare him to death, then they can spend forever together. Hector! Are you even listening to me?”

  “Sorry, what?” I took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “I am sorry, my love. I am just wondering how the devil am I going to make a book out of all of this. How am I going to pull together all the disparate ideas and round them off?”

  Cuthbert grimaced. “Easy. It’s about love, ain’t it? One man lost his love at an early age and it made him a bitter and twisted old basket. Another lost his life at an early age and never had a chance at the love he wanted, the love everybody craves.”

  I gaped at him. “You are more than a pretty face, you know.”

  “I know,” he grinned. “I have been complimented on my other end an’ all.”

  I kissed his cheek. I had already forgiven him for deceiving me, given the motive. We were together again and that was all that mattered. Just the two of us - unless...

  “How do you feel about getting a dog?” I asked. “I’ve an idea there might be one waiting for us at Monty’s.”

  THE END

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