Lady Emmeline and the Swansong Caper

by Anna Reader

  “We shall smoke these together when we are home and dry, my love,” he announced. “With a very large whisky.”

  “What an image to sustain us,” Purdie said, the nerves already starting to tingle pleasantly through her limbs. “Onwards then, I suppose, Pa.”

  “En avant!” Lord Alverstock replied; and with that he loped out of the room, across the hallway, and down the steps to the waiting Blériot-Whippet below. Purdie adjusted her harness one last time, followed him out onto the street, and hopped into the car. It was show time.

  “Is the plan still to stash the painting in your dressing room when we get it home?” Purdie asked over the roar of the engine, once they were safely underway.

  “Ah - slight change of mind, on that front.” Her father replied, with a wicked smile. “Upon reflection, I thought I’d hang it in Silly Mid Off’s stable. Reginald adored horses, and I know Aunt Augusta would have preferred something informal for his holiday.”

  Purdie threw her head back and laughed, enjoying the feeling of the wind in her hair. She rested her gloved hand on top of her father’s, which was in turn clasped around the gear-stick, and squeezed it affectionately. “I still don’t like the idea of you actually hurting yourself,” she said. “It seems terribly drastic.”

  “It’s got to look realistic, Emmie,” Lord Alverstock replied. “And I don’t intend to do anything too gruesome – just a little blood.”

  It was a glorious day in London. The sun was shining, the forget-me-knots were beginning to flower in the pockets of earth around the city’s pavements, and the birds chirruped in the trees. Lord Alverstock slapped the steering wheel in delight – how splendid, he thought, to be driving through London next to his beloved daughter, intent on honouring Raffles with their audacious scheme. He was, truth be told, not feeling quite the thing – but he certainly wouldn’t let that affect his enjoyment of the day’s activities.

  After a few short minutes of racing through town they reached the Gallery, and Lord Alverstock manoeuvred his car down the appointed side street. Purdie leapt out first, not waiting for her father to open the door for her. She looked particularly smart in honour of the private view, wearing a pair of maroon jersey slacks (of which her mother could never entirely approve), matching jacket, a cream blouse buttoned to the neck, a highly polished pair of brogues and a neat little hat to top it all off. Her father was once again carrying his golf bag, and had dressed in a pair of tan plus fours for the occasion. The pair strolled side by side through the entrance to the Gallery, and were immediately greeted by a fawning My Tilbury.

  “Lord Alverstock, Lady Emmeline,” he said, summoning his most dazzling smile, “such a pleasure to have you with us again. May I perhaps get you some refreshment before we go to take a look at your Aunt’s work? A cup of tea? Champagne?”

  “How thoughtful of you,” Purdie said with a quick smile. “A glass of bubbly would be just the thing – a toast to Aunt Augusta, and all that.”

  “Of course, m’lady,” Mr Tilbury replied, eyeballing a colleague meaningfully in silent command, whilst inwardly thanking whichever guardian angel had prompted him to stop off at Fortnum’s on the way into work. “I shall have it brought up to you. I see you are preparing for another day of golf, Lord Alverstock,” he said, with an ingratiating laugh. “Terribly good for you to be getting so much fresh air.”

  “A man needs an occupation, I always say,” Lord Alverstock announced, with great sagacity. “Improving my handicap is mine. Shall we?”

  And so the party made their way onwards to the Purcell Room, where Sir Reginald, in all his moustachioed pomp, was awaiting them. “You will see we have cordoned off the area, my Lord, to give you some privacy,” Mr Tilbury said. “I hope you will understand that a guard must remain on the floor at all times, to protect your Aunt’s work, but apart from that you will be entirely undisturbed.”

  “Quite right, dear fellow,” Lord Alverstock replied, slapping the toadying manager on the back. “We shall let you know once we have communed sufficiently with the art of my ancestors.” (Aunt Augusta would not, Lord Alverstock was well aware, take kindly to the idea of being anyone’s “ancestor”. He could almost feel the fury magnified by her minute pince-nez.)

  A young man marched in bearing an ice-bucket, a bottle of champagne, and two glasses. “Thank you, Albert,” Mr Tilbury said, with a gracious smile. “And now - we shall leave you.” The door shut soundlessly behind them, and Lord Alverstock and Purdie found themselves alone.

  “A drink before we get started?” Lord Alverstock suggested. Purdie naturally thought this was an excellent idea, and just for a moment, the pair did indeed stand before the painting in appreciation, sipping their champagne and enjoying their relation’s bold brushstrokes. “A prodigious talent,” Lord Alverstock said with a sigh. “If only Sir Reginald had not sloped of to the Congo and rent poor Aunt Augusta’s fragile heart asunder.”

  “Quite,” Purdie agreed, “most thoughtless of him. However, hey nonny nonny, and all that. Men were deceivers ever, Pater, as the bard puts it. Now let’s get started.”

  “Right-o, sprog,” Lord Alverstock replied, pulling himself together and draining his glass.

  Purdie slipped the door open as quietly as she was able, and peered up and down the corridor. The guard was, at present, nowhere to be seen. Giving her father the signal to Crack On, she crept over to the broom-cupboard, drew the copied key from her purse, and twisted it in the lock.

  Just as the door sprung silently open the sound of shoes clicking on marble echoed along the hall. Purdie flung herself into the cupboard like a leaping salmon and closed the door carefully after her, keeping it open just enough to ensure that she didn’t lock herself in. The clip-clip of the guard’s metal heels grew ever louder, and Purdie slowed her breathing, willing him not to notice to key still sitting proudly in the lock.

  Suddenly, the noise stopped: the guard was just outside, and wasn’t moving. Had he noticed? Purdie wondered, her heart racing like the clappers. Was she about to be discovered skulking in a small cupboard in the Royal Portrait Gallery, with a fall arrest winch in her hands? And then the silence was broken by the sound of chatter; Lord Alverstock, covering Purdie’s temporary disappearance, had launched into a loud speech about the merits of his Aunt’s artistry – presumably for the benefit of an attentive daughter who was in fact hidden a matter of metres away. Purdie waited, frozen, desperately trying to conjure excuses in case the door was flung open. An earring had rolled under the doorway, perhaps, and she had not revealed herself because she was embarrassed….

  And then, at last, sweet relief. The clip of the guard’s heels continued down the corridor, until it was nothing but a faint echo. Purdie breathed deeply, tucked the tripod under her arm, and crept out into the hall. By the time she had slipped back into the Purcell Room and closed the door behind her, her father had removed Sir Reginald from the wall and concealed him behind an antique chest of drawers, as agreed. The pair looked up at the blank space where the painting had been, before plucking a nine-iron from the golf bag and replacing it with the tripod.

  “Righto,” Lord Alverstock said, dropping his champagne glass to the floor. “Phase two.” He bent over, picked up a shard of shattered glass, and drew it lightly across his forehead. “Off you go, Emmie.” And with that he fell to the floor and began to groan theatrically. Purdie rushed to the window and threw it open, before dashing back to the door and crying out for help at the top of her lungs.

  “Alright, Pa?” she asked softly, looking over her shoulder at the prostate figure on the floor.

  “Tickety-boo, my love,” he replied, between very convincing groans. “Look sharp.”

  Sure enough, the guard’s gentle patrol had been transformed into an energetic jog, and Mr Tilbury, who had remained on hand in case the peer of the realm should require anything else, charged into the room by his side.

  “What’s happened?” he cried, looking down at Lord Alverstock in acute horror. “My lord!�
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  “A masked man flew through the window and filched Sir Reginald!” Purdie informed the arrivals, apparently teetering on the very edge of hysteria. “Pa tried to stop him, and the devil bashed him over the head with a crow-bar!”

  “Through the window?” Mr Tilbury yelped, jumping over Lord Alverstock’s ankles and peering down into the empty street below. “But how?!”

  “I haven’t the foggiest,” Purdie replied, feigning irritation. “However, may I suggest that you let me tend to my father, whilst you Sound the Alarm?”

  “Good God, of course,” Mr Tilbury cried, his face by now quite pale with horror. “Perkins – follow me!”

  The two men charged out of the room in hot pursuit of the stolen work of art. Lord Alverstock and Purdie waited until the room was deserted once more, before initiating Phase Three. Leaping to his feet, Lord Alverstock whipped the painting out from its hiding place and gave it to Purdie, who plucked a canvas bag from her father’s golf bag and threw it over Sir Reginald.

  Without a word Lord Alverstock then drew the small arrest winch and tripod from its hiding place in the golf bag, and secured it by the window. Purdie, who was a dab hand at knots having been militarized as a child by her School’s mania for CCF, tied herself into the nylon rope swinging from the winch – no mean feat, given that the two hoops were situated on the belt of the harness, just about at the small of her back - and took the painting in her hands.

  “Steady there,” Lord Alverstock cautioned, as Purdie ducked her head out of the window, checked that the coast was clear, and leapt up onto the sill.

  “Ready,” Purdie said, leaning out over the street below with the painting clasped to her chest and praying that Algernon’s contraption was as well-made as he had always boasted it to be.

  After that, it was the work of a moment. Lord Alverstock let the winch run, and Purdie found herself floating above the deserted side-street with her Great-aunt’s painting in her hands. The drama mistress at Purdie’s former School would doubtless have been delighted to see Puck’s harness standing up to such feats of daring, and in memory of her thespian days, Purdie found her legs assuming the stock “fairy-in-flight” position as she hurtled towards the pavement. Just before she reached the ground Lord Alverstock hit the brakes and the nylon rope suddenly stopped spinning, leaving Purdie bobbing a few inches about the street like a particularly ravishing worm on a fishing line. As quickly as she could, Purdie placed the painting on the ground and unhooked herself from the rope, before tugging it twice as the signal to her father to wheel it back in.

  As the rope flew back through the Purcell Room window, Purdie stashed the painting in the back-seat of the waiting Blériot-Whippet, tucked the harness away under her shirt and, unnoticed, slipped back into the building. Chaos reigned at the entrance to the Gallery; Mr Tilbury had mobilized his work-force, and they were dashing about in panic. Some had been sent off to deal with the police, others had been asked to inform the insurers of the catastrophe, and the manager himself was nowhere to be seen - presumably because he was personally attempting to chase the thief through the streets of London.

  “I’m sorry, miss,” a nervous young man said to Purdie as she made to go back up the stairs, “I’m afraid I can’t let you up there – it’s a crime-scene.”

  “I’m only too aware of that,” she replied, turning to look at him with a haunted expression transforming her face. “I was in the room with my father when it happened.”

  The young man was rendered temporarily speechless by Purdie’s beauty – the swift descent to earth at the end of the winch had given her cheeks a particularly radiant glow - and instinctively stepped aside to let her pass.

  “I just slipped down to the bathroom to splash some water on my face as I was feeling rather faint, but now I must get back to my father.”

  “There’s….no one up there now, miss,” the man replied, stumbling over his words. “The guards are clearing the floor and roping off the room before the police arrive.”

  “Well, do you know where he is?” Purdie demanded, panic beginning to rise as an image flashed before her eyes of the museum staff bursting in on her father with the tripod standing by the window in all its glory.

  “No, miss,” came the answer. “Perhaps…”

  “Purdie!” her father shouted. Purdie looked up to see Lord Alverstock being assisted down the stairs by a strapping young Gallery assistant, whilst he held a handkerchief to his bleeding head. “There you are!” A second member of staff was carrying Lord Alverstock’s golf bag, marvelling at the weight of the aristocracy’s clubs.

  “Pa, we must get you home,” Purdie said, rushing forwards and peeling the handkerchief away in genuine concern. “This needs stitches.”

  “I think the police will want to have a word with you both, sir,” the chap with the golf bag interjected, “since you actually saw the thief.”

  “We’ll both be more than happy to speak to the police,” Purdie replied firmly, “once my father has seen his doctor. Just tell them to come to St. Edward’s Court, Kensington, at their earliest convenience. Good day to you.”

  And with that Lord Alverstock retrieved his clubs, slipped his arm through his daughter’s, and made for the door. “Everything alright?” Purdie asked, trying to glance into the bag to see the winch.

  “Fine. Although I think you might be right on the stitches.”

  The pair passed through the doorway and out onto the sunlit street. “Oh cripes,” Purdie muttered, suddenly picking up the pace.

  “What is it?” Lord Alverstock asked.

  “Don’t look now, but Peter Dashwood is across the street and obviously making for the Gallery. Quickly, before he sees us.”

  The duo rounded the corner apace and into the narrow street beyond, leapt into the car, and sped off towards West London in a cloud of dust.

  “Was that Lord Alverstock and his daughter I just saw leaving the crime-scene?” Inspector Dashwood asked, as he found Mr Tilbury’s deputy waiting for him outside the Gallery.

  “It was indeed, sir. They were actually in the room when it happened. Lord Alverstock was rather badly hurt – blood all over his plus fours, apparently.”

  “How unfortunate,” Peter replied mildly. “I’d like to take a look at the Purcell Room, if you’d be so kind.”

  TEN

  As Inspector Dashwood began interrogating the crime scene, Purdie and Lord Alverstock tore through the streets of London.

  “You take the picture,” Lord Alverstock instructed, as the Blériot-Whippet juddered to a standstill outside the family’s town-house, “and I’ll stash the clubs.”

  “Isn’t that Algie’s bicycle?” Purdie asked, momentarily distracted, as she leapt from the car and tucked Sir Reginald under her arm.

  The vehicle in question was unmistakable. Algernon was an adventurous soul, and had made some extraordinary customisations to his Italian racing bike with a view to facilitating his various expeditions. He had, for example, attached a second saddle above the back wheel in order to enable various of his cronies, and occasionally his sister, to dangle behind him as he tore through the English countryside. A small wooden barrel containing a rock-hammer, torch, string, miniature chess-set, and brandy had been lashed to the handle-bars, lending the bike something of a St. Bernard’s air, and a fishing rod had been strapped to the frame. It appeared as though he had left Cambridge ready for action.

  “It certainly looks like his,” Lord Alverstock replied, heaving the clubs from the car. “He must’ve set off at the crack of dawn.”

  Sure enough, Algernon bounded towards the pair as they made their way through the front door and into the house, a hunk of pork-pie in one hand and pint of ale in the other. “Hallo!” he cried, bestowing a wicked grin upon his twin. “What the devil have you been up to, then? Scotland Yard just called and said that one of their bods was coming over to interview you.”

  “Ugh, Peter could at least give us time to stitch your forehead,” Purdie replied in d
isgust, to the utter bewilderment of her twin. “What a pill.”

  “Who’s Peter? And what’s all this talk of….Crikey!” Algernon cried, noticing the blood dripping down from beneath his father’s dishevelled fringe “Are you alright, Pater?”

  “No time to explain,” Lord Alverstock replied. “I need you to drive me to the stables, Algernon.” His children looked at him blankly. “We need to stash Sir Reginald and the tripod before Dashwood bursts onto the scene,” he explained patiently, “and I don’t think I can drive without patching up my head. Purdie, you stay here and look after Peter – just tell him I’ve gone to the doctor, and that I’ll be back shortly. Algie, with me.”

  And with that Lord Alverstock plucked the painting from under Purdie’s arm, thrust it into the arms of his son, and hot-footed it out of the house once more. Algernon looked at his sister in bewilderment.

  “Pa will explain,” she said. “Off you hop.”

  With a resigned shrug of the shoulders, a baffled Algernon tucked the remnants of his lunch in the pocket of his tweed jacket, handed his now-empty tankard to his sister and followed his father to the car. Unusual though this exchange might had been, it was by no means the most bizarre family reunion on record. Indeed, it was only the previous summer that the twins had arrived home for the weekend to find their father re-enacting the Battle of Naseby with some chums in the garden.

  Purdie, meanwhile, marched into the drawing room and poured herself a bracing whisky. How her father would present the facts to Algernon she couldn’t imagine – but it looked very much as though their criminal duo was about to become a syndicate. That was not necessarily a bad thing, of course; Algernon was a great gun and always prepared for a spot of good-natured criminal activity, but Purdie was still aware of a slight feeling of disappointment. Not only because it meant her father’s illness would once again be made all too real, but also because she was rather jealous of his time: she’d rather enjoyed sharing a secret with him, truth be told, and wasn’t entirely sure that she was ready to let her brother in on the action. Still, she thought, as she swilled the amber whisky around in its glass, she mustn’t be selfish – Algernon had just as much right to share in the caper, and was sure to find it all enormous fun. And as for Lord Alverstock’s illness; well, Algie had a right to know.