The next obvious question was: ‘What did it say?’, so Eddie had asked it.
‘MOOT GO HOME. WE DON’T WANT YOUR KIND HERE,’ Gherkin had replied, with a mischievous grin.
‘What kind is he?’
‘That’s the beauty of it, young Edmund. He can be any kind you like. The note could be from someone who doesn’t like doctors, or droopy moustaches, or the way he pronounces his “r”s … He’ll be racking his brains trying to work out who’s got it in for him and why.’
‘That’s very clever,’ Eddie had said.
‘Ingenious,’ Gherkin had agreed. ‘It was the detective chief inspector’s idea.’
See, dear readers? I told you he was a good policeman.
‘We’ve also been surprisingly successful at eavesdropping on some of their conversations,’ Bunyon had added. He’d straightened up the pile of books – gazetteers – and was gently lowering himself into a sitting position. ‘And we know that they plan to steal whatever they plan to steal – in addition to the painting you tell us that they have already stolen – tomorrow evening during the first performance of That’s Mabel.’
‘That’s My Boy,’ Eddie had corrected him.
‘That’s not what it says on the posters and programmes,’ Gherkin had told him.
Oh dear, Eddie had thought. Oh dear.
*
And now the curtain was up and the play had begun. Eddie was still wondering what ‘valuables’ the gang of three were after. It wasn’t as though Awful End was one of those country houses stuffed with treasures and family heirlooms. MUJ and EMAM had rather a different approach to things. They liked what they liked and valued what they valued, regardless of its so-called value in the wider world. When Even Madder Aunt Maud was to die, many, many, many years after the events in this book, she was buried with her most treasured possession: a tatty old stuffed stoat. One of Mad Uncle Jack’s most prized objects was a prune stone: the first thing his beloved Maud ever spat at him. If you’re a sentimental old thing like me, you might be moved to tears by such things and mutter ‘a price beyond rubies’ into the nearest beard. If you’re a thief, however, you might be annoyed and demand, ‘Where’s the good stuff?’
Mad Uncle Jack did have a safe – made by Dullard & Fisk of Birmingham in 1863 (according to the big metal badge-like thingumy on the front of it) – but he’d long since forgotten what was in it and lost the key. But there were also some valuable – in the money-money-money sense – pieces of silver and oil paintings to be had. And to have them, Harry Morton intended.
Episode 16
The Grand Finale
In which the final curtain falls on Eddie’s Further Adventures
Now, the more eagle-eyed amongst you might just have spotted that the illustration above is not a David Roberts original. In truth, some of you might not consider it an illustration at all. I confess: I drew it myself. Why? I’ll tell you why, because David is a very busy man – he must have a cleaning job on the side, or something – so he agreed to do a certain number of pictures for this book, and no more. Then, because there was so much to fit into this final adventure, I had to make the book a little longer than I thought I would … and there aren’t enough pictures to go round. But will I let a small thing such as that defeat me? No way. Let the story continue.
Whilst all eyes were (apparently) on the stage, the lovely Daniella’s father and Harry Morton were studying the safe in what had once been MUJ’s study. Dr Moot had told them exactly where he’d found it and they went straight there. They weren’t even going to attempt to open the safe in the study. The plan was to take it elsewhere and then to blow the door off with dynamite. The whole point of a safe was that it was designed to be difficult to move. This particular one wasn’t bolted to the floor or set in concrete, but it was incredibly heavy. The two Harrys had come armed with some special kind of hoist (or lifting device) and a very tough-looking metal trolley to wheel it away on.
Whilst Eddie was performing on the stage in the grounds in an early scene (where he learns that his parents have gone yellow, crinkly around the edges and smell of old hot-water bottles), Scarple and Morton managed to ease the safe onto the trolley. It was hard work, and they’d worked up a good sweat.
‘Now what?’ asked Scarple.
‘We sticks to the plan, that’s what, Thunk.’
‘Remind me.’
‘The solid silver stuff in the back of them cupboards Moo-Cow told us about.’ Morton unfolded a rough plan of some of the rooms that Dr Moot had sketched out for them. ‘Our very own treasure map,’ he grinned.
They hurried from room to room, putting their booty into the large sack that they’d initially used to carry the hoist into the house.
‘Beats workin’ for a livin’,’ said the chimney-sweep with a smile. Next, they started taking the oil paintings off the walls.
Now came the tricky part. With everyone outside and them inside, knowing exactly where the ‘good stuff ’ was, they could work quickly and efficiently, but now they had to get the stuff out of the house and off the grounds.
Fortunately for this pair of thieves, there was an ancient path crossing the Dickens estate, which anyone and everyone had a right to walk along (or ride a horse along, though not a mule or a donkey, apparently) without permission. At one point, it passed surprisingly close to the house itself, and – to give the Dickenses some privacy – hedges had been planted either side of it for this stretch. What’s more, it was on the opposite side of the house to the stage.
Part of the plan was simply to tie off the end of the silver-filled sack and to toss it over the hedge onto the Way (as the path was called locally). The path was rarely used and they could simply collect their booty later.
Wheeling the trolley off the grounds with the safe and a pile of pictures on top would be a little harder. Morton unfolded the sheet he’d brought with him especially for the occasion and threw it over the trolley. On it was printed:
PUMBLESNOOK’S
If stopped or challenged, they’d claim to be a part of the night’s proceedings, moving props and scenery for That’s My Boy.
Harry Morton admired his own handiwork, straightening the sheet at one corner. ‘A very professional job though I says so meself, Thu–’
There was a crash from the next room, as though someone had kicked a vase or something. Scarple dashed over to the door, as nimbly and as silently as his limp allowed. There was no point in hiding and hoping that whoever it might be would go away. They’d left the sack in there, and they weren’t about to give it up without a fight.
Scarple looked left and right; under the table and behind the door; and even in a cupboard or two. No one. He tied off the top of the sack, and headed for the back door. ‘I’ll just toss this onto the Way, an’ be right back,’ he told Morton. The sack was good and heavy, and Daniella’s father was thinking of all the lovely things this silver would buy.
It was some twenty-five minutes later, when the two thieves were pushing the heavily-laden trolley across a stretch of grass, that Even Madder Aunt Maud went and spoiled everything. The play had reached the stage where Malcolm appeared, and the sight of a pretend Malcolm made her pine for the real one even more keenly. She’d got up from her seat and gone for a walk.
Morton – who was, most definitely, the brains of the outfit – hadn’t taken into consideration the effect the weight of the safe on the trolley might have when moving it. The plan had been to wheel it boldly down the gravel drive, but you try wheeling something that heavy down gravel. It sank like a stubborn elephant digging its heels in (if elephants have heels). They were lucky that they even managed to get it off the drive and back into the house. This change of plan meant that they’d have to push it across grass, including a small stretch that would be in full view of anyone in the audience who chose to glance to their left …
… and now here was Mad Aunt Maud.
‘Beautiful evenin’, ma’am,’ said Morton, raising his cap.
‘Dro
p dead,’ she said.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Morton, with righteous indignation.
‘Not you, nincompoop,’ she muttered. ‘I was talking to myself.’
The two Harrys dared not stop pushing the trolley, for fear of it sinking into the lawn and becoming lodged. The upper lawn was on a slight slope, sweeping down to the lower lawn and the ornamental lake. Their rather one-sided conversation with EMAM caused a momentary lapse in concentration. Morton let go of the trolley just as it started to roll down the slope, Scarple running to keep up with it, his hands still on the handle. Morton reached out and grabbed it too, but the laws of physics dictate that something feels a lot heavier if it’s rolling down hill gathering speed. (But don’t put that in an answer to an exam question, just in case I’m wrong.) Soon both men were forced to let go of the trolley as it gathered nuts in May.* They chased after it and so did Eddie’s great-aunt.
‘This is fun!’ she screeched.
It was her shout which made a member of the audience look up and see a large trolley hurtling towards the rows of people watching the first-night performance. The man in question, Johnny Bluff, had been a big game hunter. He’d loved endangering species in Africa and India, until one day his rifle jammed and he was charged by a very angry bull elephant indeed. He’d escaped with his life, and a few squashed toes, but had become a bag of nerves … and now something else was charging his way.
‘Elephant attack!’ he shouted, leaping to his feet.
Even Mr Pumblesnook would have been hard-pressed keeping all eyes on the stage with that interruption. In fact, this was one of the rare moments when the actor-manager was in the wings.
The audience jumped up and scattered, knocking chairs hither and thither (which is not dissimilar to here, there and everywhere).
Logically, this would have been the moment for Harry ‘The Fingers’ Morton and Harry ‘Thunk’ Scarple to turn and run. They must have known in their heart of hearts that the safe and its contents were never going to be theirs after all. But human nature’s not like that. You let go of something and it runs away, and you chase after it, so on they went, through the small crowd and beyond.
The own-clothed policemen dropped all pretence of being friends, relatives or theatre-lovers and gave chase, but – jumping from the edge of the stage – Eddie had a head start … which is how he came to be only seconds behind Morton when the thief tripped over something, and fell.
The something in question was the tail of some kind of stuffed stoat, which had been buried in the mud, nose-first, by a young crocodile, perhaps intent on removing a rival to her mistress’s affections. (Who knows what goes on in the mind of a young female crocodile? Not I.)
‘Malcolm!’ screeched Even Madder Aunt Maud, redder-faced from all that running than any beetroot’s face could ever be. She pulled him out of the ground like a gardener plucks out a carrot, and there followed a reunion to rival any scene – romantic or sentimental – in any film/movie/flick/motion picture ever made.
Eddie’s father, meanwhile, had nabbed Morton before he’d fully struggled to his feet. The rage at his play being interrupted was so great that it seemed to give him super-human strength. If someone had been in a position to hand him a baby grand piano there and then, he felt that he could have ripped it in two. With his teeth. Holding on to a snarling villain was a piece of cake/a stroll in the park/a walk in the rain.
Which left the chimney-sweep Scarple who, true to his nickname Thunk, was the victim of yet another little accident. The trolley must also have hit Malcolm and the safe had lurched off it, landing on him with a loud ‘thunk!’, of all things. The force of the jolt had also made the door fly open. I’ll write that again, just to make sure you got it: made the door fly open. The safe had been unlocked all the time. Its contents were now littered across the grass.
A puzzled Eddie picked up a square black object, the size of a floor tile. It was a black floor tile, and the safe had been full of them. Now where in heavens could they have come from? Your guess is as good as mine. As to why Mad Uncle Jack had put them in the safe in the first place, I doubt even he knew. Anyone who’s journeyed through all six Eddie Dickens books with me will know that M-a-d at the start of his name is there for a reason.
‘You’re both under arrest,’ said Detective Chief Inspector Bunyon, arriving on the scene at last, a little out of breath.
‘What for?’ sneered Morton. ‘Wheelin’ a bunch of floor tiles around a garden? What will we get for that, then? A slap on the wrist?’
‘What about this, then?’ said Bunyon, stepping aside to let two officers bring forward a large sack between them. ‘Once you threw that sack over the hedge into the Way, you’d taken it off Major Dickens’s property without permission. There’s a word for that: theft.’
‘Prove it was us what threw it,’ said Morton.
‘Yeah,’ said Scarple trying to sound defiant, but they could tell that he had no fight in him.
Bunyon opened the sack, then, looking into it, opened his eyes wide with surprise. The sack started to move.
‘You!’ gasped Scarple, as Gherkin stepped out of the sack and into the evening air, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.
The dwarf was nursing a nasty bump on his head. ‘Not the best place to hide under the circumstances, I’ll admit,’ he said. ‘But the one place you didn’t look … and I was able to hear everything you two villains said, whilst, at the same time, keeping the stolen silver in sight.’
Detective Chief Inspector Bunyon gave the two Harrys the benefit of one of his withering stares. ‘So now all you have to do is tell us what you did with the painting, and –’
‘They don’t have the painting,’ said Eddie.
‘Wh–?’ said Gherkin.
‘–at?’ said Bunyon.
Eddie walked over to A. C. Pryden who was standing amongst the semicircle of onlookers who had gathered round. ‘I only realised it this afternoon, Mr Pryden, but there was something wrong with your story about leaving the picture while you went to get some more writing paper downstairs. You wanted the picture to appear to have been stolen, without any of us in the household being under suspicion. That’s why you seized the opportunity to say it had been stolen at a time when we all had alibis, as we gathered together on the lawn. That’s why you didn’t want the police involved. That’s why you were reluctant to speak to Mr Peevance in his police cell. You knew he had nothing to do with it.’
‘Is this true, sir?’ demanded Bunyon, whose men had now freed Scarple from beneath the safe and were putting him in handcuffs.
‘Yes,’ said the painter, sounding like the most guilty penguin anyone of us is ever likely to meet.
‘But why? That’s what I don’t understand,’ said Eddie.
By way of an answer, A. C. Pryden stuck his hand in a pocket and pulled out a crumpled letter. He handed it to the detective chief inspector.
‘Can’t read,’ he said, handing it to the desk sergeant, who thought that it was jolly unfair of him to have been called away from his desk. (And he didn’t like not wearing his uniform with the lovely shiny buttons either.) ‘Won’t read,’ he said, passing it to Eddie. So Eddie read it. Aloud.
‘Dear Mr Pryden, I regret to inform you that, due to a simple clerical error, you have been commissioned to paint a portrait of the wrong Major Dickens.’ Eddie gulped. ‘Whilst it was the War Office’s intention that you paint Major Jock Dickens, a fine soldier who has distinguished himself in a series of campaigns during an illustrious career spanning many decades –’ Eddie paused at this point. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to read any more out loud.
‘A typing error meant that you ended up painting my uncle instead?’ said his father.
‘That’s the gist of it,’ the portrait painter nodded. ‘And I felt it would be shabby and disrespectful to simply pack up and leave, but neither did I want a public unveiling. If I could convince you in the family that the painting had gone, then those at the War Office coul
d inform the Major themselves, at a more appropriate time and in a more respectful manner.’
‘Very noble sentiments indeed, but you could have wasted valuable police time,’ said Bunyon. ‘However, seeing as how things have worked out …’
‘Thank you,’ said Pryden.
When Malcolm had been washed, Harry ‘The Fingers’ Morton and Harry ‘Thunk’ Scarple taken off to the police station (and Moot arrested in Harborough Wensley, trying to pretend that he was someone else, simply by having shaved off his moustache), Fabian asked Eddie the all-important question: ‘What was it that Mr Pryden said that made you realise that he’d made up the whole thing about the painting having been stolen?’
And here’s the sad part. I’ve no idea what Eddie’s reply was.
A shame that. There’s no record of his explanation anywhere that I could find.
Still, this isn’t a detective novel with all the suspects gathered in the library for the grand unmasking. This is an Eddie Dickens adventure. We’re here for … for … What are we here for? Now, that would be a profound question to end on.
*
But I can’t leave it there, of course. There are plenty of other questions I can answer. I can, for example tell you that, though the first night’s performance of That’s Mabel was abandoned, despite Mr and Mrs Pumblesnook’s chorus of ‘The show must go on!’, it was performed two nights later (on the Wednesday). It was, by all accounts, appalling. The writing was patchy to say the least, and Mr Pumblesnook performing so many of the meaty roles led to terrible confusion as to who he was supposed to be when, especially during the scenes where he was playing three or more characters on stage at the same time. Eddie managed to remember all of his lines and put in a creditable performance.
Dubious Deeds Page 30
