Dubious Deeds

by Philip Ardagh

  ‘My instructions were to leave Ollie, with the note and hanky, where one of you would find him,’ Fabian explained, ‘then to stay close and watch for a few days, to make sure you treated him fairly.’

  ‘And instead you overheard talk of beatings and saw a strange woman brandishing a stuffed ferret,’ spat Fandango Jones, forgetting himself for a moment.

  Even Madder Aunt Maud, who’d given the detective inspector his milk-free, sugar-free water, was now holding Malcolm again, so was able to hit the fairly well-known engineer over the head with him. (Though not hard enough to dislodge the piece of devilled kidney from his hat’s brim.) ‘Stoat!’ she corrected him.

  ‘But what happened to the note and your grandfather’s handkerchief with the Dickens crest on it?’ asked Eddie. ‘It wasn’t in the basket when I fished it out of the water.’

  ‘It wasn’t?’ asked Fabian, in surprise.

  ‘Do you think they’d have let a monk take him away if they’d known who he was?’ asked Eddie, secretly not at all sure that, with this family, the answer would have been ‘no’!

  ‘And didn’t you think it strange that we were calling the boy Ned, if we’d read your mother’s communication which, no doubt, informed us that his name was Oliphant?’ added Eddie’s father, who’d been wheeled into the kitchen by Gibbering Jane just as Fabian had been about to explain matters.

  ‘I … I didn’t think,’ said a crestfallen Fabian. ‘So you never saw the note?’

  ‘No,’ said Eddie. ‘It must have fallen from the basket into the lake before we found it.’

  ‘But why did you put your baby brother in the bulrushes in the first place?’ asked Detective Inspector Bunyon. Being the only policeman present, he thought that it should be he who was asking all the questions. ‘Why not leave him at the front door?’

  ‘I didn’t want to be spotted,’ said Fabian. ‘I wanted to leave Oliphant, then slip away to a safe distance and observe. But I didn’t want it to take too long for him to be discovered, either. When I saw Eddie and her,’ he nodded at EMAM, ‘knocking turnips about on the lower lawn, I seized the opportunity and put Ollie within crying distance.’

  ‘The roof,’ said the detective inspector. ‘How did you come to be on the roof?’

  Fabian looked down at his handcuffed hands, resting in his lap. ‘I soon discovered that most of the rooms in this vast place are empty and how few of you live here, so it was easy to slip in through the back door and hide myself, listening out and keeping an eye on Ollie the best I could.’ He looked at Gibbering Jane. ‘He obviously likes you very much,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t coo like that for anyone but me and Mother back at camp.’

  Gibbering Jane gibbered with pure pride and pleasure, like an over-excited monkey.

  ‘It was harder to keep watch when everyone was out at the front, so looking down from the roof seemed the obvious solution. The last time I was up there, I was just about to lean over the parapet when an old man dressed as a soldier appeared and gave me a terrible shock, and I accidentally pushed over this piece of stone I was leaning on.’

  ‘Which was the chimney my mother’d left there … and it landed on you, Father!’ said Eddie.

  ‘I don’t believe a word of it!’ cried Even Madder Aunt Maud, brandishing Malcolm in the air. ‘Feed him to the lions, I say!’

  ‘No, wait,’ said a familiar voice, and everyone turned to see Mr and Mrs Dickens’s good friend Emily Thackery, the animal lover. Unnoticed, she’d walked into the kitchen through the back door a while since, and had been listening to the Eddie lookalike in rapt silence. ‘Look at this,’ she said.

  Mrs Thackery spread a piece of material on the kitchen table. It was damp and looked sort of chewed, but there’s no denying what it was: a handkerchief bearing the Dickens crest.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ demanded the detective inspector.

  ‘Out of that duck with a terrible tummy ache which I took with me after my last visit,’ Mrs Thackery explained. ‘She’s made a full recovery.’

  Detective Inspector Humphrey Bunyon turned to Mr Dickens, strapped to his tea trolley. ‘The decision is yours, sir,’ he said. ‘Do you believe the boy’s story? Or do you wish me to take the matter further? Looking at him, there’s not a shadow of a doubt in my mind that the lad has Dickens blood in him, and I’m inclined to believe his version of events.’

  Mr Dickens smiled. ‘What’s a few bumps and bruises when we’ve just discovered a whole new branch of the family we never even knew existed? Of course I believe him, Inspector. I consider this case closed.’

  Detective Inspector Humphrey Bunyon fished a small key out of his pocket and unlocked the handcuffs, freeing Fabian’s wrists. The policeman couldn’t have been more delighted. He could now escape Awful End and go home and have a very large celebratory meal. ‘Then my work here is at an end,’ he said. ‘Let me bid you all good day.’ Mad Uncle Jack walked into the kitchen as the policeman walked out. ‘Good day to you too, sir,’ said Bunyon.

  ‘Balderdash!’ said MUJ.

  *

  So, as with all Eddie Dickens books before it, we come to the stage where I draw the adventure to a close and give an indication as to what happened next to those who took part.

  Work soon began again on Fandango Jones’s iron bridge but, halfway through the project, Mad Uncle Jack changed his mind and had him pull it down and re-use the material to build a giant something-or-other instead. I’ve seen pictures of the structure, and I still don’t know what it was supposed to be. All I do know is that, during the Second World War, it was dismantled and the materials were re-used as a part of the war effort, as a result of a nationwide campaign on the home front headed by someone called Lord Beaverbrook.

  There is no mention of Jones’s design or work on the bridge in Bridging the Gap: Being the Life of that Fairly Well-Known Engineer Fandango Jones.

  Detective Inspector Bunyon did manage to regain a great deal of the weight that he lost following his incarceration in a trunk at the hands of the deadly Smiley Gang (all of whom he subsequently managed to arrest, with the exception of its ringleader, Smiley Johnson). He never managed to get quite as fat as he was before. By way of compensation, though, he was promoted to Detective Chief Inspector not long after the events in this Further Adventure.

  His desk sergeant managed to lock himself in his own handcuffs on three further occasions.

  And Fabian and Baby Ollie? Why, they both came to live at Awful End, along with their parents Hester and Alfie, which is how they all come to feature in the third and final of Eddie’s Further Adventures, so I won’t say any more about them here.

  As for the Thackerys, young David did go into the church. Many churches, in fact. And cathedrals. And rich people’s houses, usually when the occupants were out or their backs were turned. As he grew older, he became more and more disenchanted with his family being so nice to animals and less and less keen on the idea of being a man of the cloth … so he became a burglar instead, specialising in stealing candle-sticks, crosses and other ‘ecclesiastical furniture’. He was finally caught and, sadly, lost an eye in a prison fight before he came to trial. Apparently it was an argument over whether the correct term is ‘a cake of soap’ or ‘a bar of soap’, which was a pity, because the two are entirely different things.

  Which just leaves the monks of Lamberley Monastery.

  One morning, less than six weeks after the events ending here occurred, Abbot Po awoke from a dream at about three o’clock in the morning.

  Dashing to the bell tower, he tolled its only bell, causing his bemused and bleary-eyed brethren to rise from their beds and assemble in the Chapter House. Once they were all present, he told them that he’d dreamt of a huge plug being pulled out of the ground and of a dreadful gurgling noise.

  ‘I cannot tell whether it was simply something I ate or whether it was a vision,’ Po said in that beautiful voice of his, ‘but I cannot take the chance. I must ask you all to evacuate immediately.’

  T
his they did and, as numerous eyewitnesses will testify, no sooner had the last man left the building – which was Po himself, of course – than there was an appalling gulping SLERCHING noise, and Lamberley Monastery disappeared into the ground like a sinking ship beneath the waves.

  Being monks of the Bertian order, they all saw the funny side of it and were remarkably jolly about being homeless. Not that they were for long.

  Where could they find a large building with enough empty rooms to offer them temporary accommodation, and at such short notice?

  It was Eddie who answered the knock on the front door of Awful End later that morning. Standing on the doorstep was the ugliest man he’d ever had the privilege to know.

  ‘Good morning Eddie,’ said Po. ‘Remember how we put you up for a while?’

  Eddie nodded.

  ‘I wonder if you could return the favour?’

  Eddie nodded. There were monks as far as the eye could see.

  *

  THE END

  until the final Further Adventure

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This is not a history book, so please don’t go stating any of the information contained within it as ‘fact’ without checking it first. I’ve always found Old Roxbee’s books an excellent source of information but, then again, that could be another of my lies.

  Final Curtain

  Book Three of the Further Adventures of Eddie Dickens Trilogy

  In memory of

  Stephen Cartwright.

  It was fun.

  A Message from the Author

  Who’s invested in a big box of hankies

  Well, this is the end of the road as far as Eddie’s Further Adventures are concerned. First, there was the original trilogy which began with Awful End, and then this one, which started off with Eddie Dickens in the heathery highlands of Scotland in Dubious Deeds. Blimey. Six books. Who would have believed it, especially when Eddie started out life as a character in a series of letters to my nephew Ben? Will there be yet more adventures one day? Come closer and I’ll tell you … Closer … You’d better believe it! Until then, it’s curtain up for Final Curtain. Quiet at the back there, please.

  PHILIP ARDAGH

  Ireland, 2006

  Contents

  1 Is This a Dagger?,

  In which Eddie plays himself, and Even Madder Aunt Maud acts true to form

  2 Goodbyes, Hellos & Tallyhos!,

  In which we say goodbye to a bunch of monks and get to know a bunch of relatives better

  3 A Cracking Time,

  In which an enemy is vanquished and we welcome a new arrival

  4 Doctor! Doctor!,

  In which Annabelle snaps, and Dawkins almost does

  5 Surprising News,

  In which Mad Uncle Jack receives an offer he can’t refuse

  6 Making a Splash,

  In which a doctor pays two visits and later pays the price

  7 Remembrance of Things Past,

  In which readers are given a short account of the death of Malcontent, and meet a very short man

  8 Lurkin’ with Gherkin,

  In which Eddie befriends an extraordinary man and enjoys a hearty breakfast

  9 Warts and All,

  In which a famous painter arrives at Awful End and probably wishes that he hadn’t

  10 State of Play,

  In which the portrait is completed and preparations for the play are well under way

  11 An Old Acquaintance,

  In which Eddie dodges punches and low-flying vegetables

  12 A Blast from the Past,

  In which matters turn from worse to even worse, which can’t be good

  13 Eddie on the Case!,

  In which Eddie sees some familiar faces in some unfamiliar places

  14 Den of Thieves,

  In which Eddie sees various acquaintances in a different light

  15 The Final Act,

  In which the curtain rises and the plot is revealed

  16 The Grande Finale,

  In which the final curtain falls on Eddie’s Further Adventures

  Prologue

  HARRY: That’s the ’ouse.

  THUNK: You sure?

  HARRY: ’Course I’m sure!

  THUNK: How comes you’re so sure you’re sure?

  HARRY: How many other ’ouses d’you reckon have ’ollow cows in their flowerbeds?

  THUNK: I was only askin’, ’arry … Do we do the job tonight?

  HARRY: ’Course we don’t do the job tonight. Have you been listenin’ to a word I’ve been tellin’ you? We waits until the time is right.

  THUNK: And ’ow do we know when that is?

  HARRY: When our man on the inside says it is.

  THUNK: You mean –?

  HARRY: Correct. We’re about to rob them Dickenses blind with a little ’elp from a viper in their own nest.

  THUNK: Ha! Does that mean we can get out of this ditch now, ’arry?

  HARRY: It most certainly does, Thunk. Let’s be on our way.

  Episode 1

  Is This a Dagger?

  In which Eddie plays himself, and Even Madder Aunt Maud acts true to form

  As the dagger was thrust towards Eddie Dickens a second time, he managed to throw himself clear, crashing down against a pile of barrels that rolled haphazardly across the bare-planked floor.

  ‘There’s no escape, my boy!’ bellowed the knife-wielding masked man, looming above him, weapon poised and ready to strike.

  ‘Stop that at once!’ cried a voice, grating enough to peel the zest off a lemon at one-hundred-and-two paces, and the next thing the masked man knew was that he was being battered about the head with a stuffed stoat.

  The actor-manager Mr Pumblesnook (for it was he in the costume of ‘villain’) had always tried to impress upon those under his tuition that, when performing, it was of the utmost – the utmost – importance to stay in character, no matter what.

  Over the past few weeks at Awful End, however, he had learned to take this golden rule, hide it in a piece of sacking, slip it into a bottom drawer and forget ALL about it, when dealing with two particular people. Said people were Mad Mr Jack Dickens (aka Mad Uncle Jack, MUJ, or Mad Major Dickens) and his lovely wife, Even Madder Aunt Maud.

  It was the latter who was beating the poor man about the head at that moment. ‘My good lady,’ said Mr Pumblesnook (as himself and not the villain). ‘Might I remind you for the umpteenth time that I am not actually attacking your great-nephew. He and I are undertaking a dramatic endeavour. We are rehearsing a play –’ He used his forearms and elbows to fend off the blows as best he could. ‘– as we were when you attacked me three times yesterday, twice the day before and on heaven-knows-how-many occasions on heaven-knows-how-many days prior to that.’

  ‘So you say,’ snapped Even Madder Aunt Maud. ‘But how can I be sure that you’re not really attacking him this time?’

  ‘I’m fine, Aunt Maud,’ said Eddie, who’d already got to his feet. ‘We’re only pretending.’

  ‘PRETENDING?’ boomed Mr Pumblesnook, his voice loud enough to deafen a passing earwig. (I have a sworn affidavit from the earwig to that effect, which is a kind of legal statement not commonly used in the insect world.) ‘We are not pretending, Master Edmund. We are ACTING.’

  Even Madder Aunt Maud thrust Malcolm’s nose right up against Mr Pumblesnook’s. Stuffed stoat and actor-manager eyed each other suspiciously. ‘Don’t shout at the boy,’ she said.

  Pumblesnook produced a flamboyant kerchief from the breast pocket of his purple jacket and mopped perspiration from his brow. (This sentence is now also available in English: He pulled out a hanky and wiped the sweat off his forehead.) ‘Forgive me, dear lady, but my two most oft-repeated reminders of these past few weeks are that I am NOT actually intending to harm the boy and, young Edmund, we are acting – thinking ourselves into living a part and being a character – and are not pretending.’ He said this last word as though it were an unpleasant gas given off by an emba
rrassing-looking fungus.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Particularly when, in this instance, the character you are playing is yourself.’

  ‘A point well made, Mr Pumblesnook,’ said Eddie for, in the play they were currently rehearsing, Eddie Dickens was indeed playing Eddie Dickens, the play being a dramatisation of certain episodes from his life. The dramatisation wasn’t simply the telling of true events from Eddie’s recent past; the playwright had decided that he should change the odd fact here and there to make it even more dramatic.

  The playwright in question was none other than Eddie’s own father, Mr Dickens, who had announced that ‘writing can’t be that difficult if that oaf Ardagh can do it.’ The statement had been greeted with a few polite ‘mmms’, one ‘surely’ and an ‘absolutely’ because no one had any idea who this Ardagh fellow he was referring to actually was. It was once he was under way, with several piles of scrumpled paper, sleepless nights and ink-stained fingers later, that Mr Dickens had realised – as many had before him and have since – that one should never let the facts get in the way of a good story.