Dubious Deeds Read online

  ‘Did Her Majesty agree to it?’ asked Eddie, his mouth full. Although Eddie’s mother, Mrs Dickens, was well known for speaking with her mouth full – whether it was with ice cubes, onions, acorns or even dressing-gown cord tassels — it was not encouraged in the Dickens household, and shows just how delicious Mrs McFeeeeeeee’s cake was and just how interested Eddie was in the topic of conversation. Royal gossip was as popular back then as it is now.

  ‘I believe that Her Majesty was on the verge of agreeing to the plan when Sir James brought in another physician, a Dr Arnott, to give additional advice. All was going fine until Dr Arnott confided to the Queen his strong belief that the average person could live for hundreds of years if only he had the maximum amount of fresh air!’

  Just in case you’re under the impression that Mrs McFeeeeeeee’s friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend (or whoever) was pulling her leg, let me assure you that everything she said was pretty much true. Both Dr Arnott and Sir James Clark were fresh-air freaks. Sir James was also, by all accounts, a pretty rotten doctor. On one occasion he diagnosed Queen Victoria as having a bad attack of indigestion, but it turned out to be typhoid. On another – much more serious – occasion he pronounced one of the Queen Mother’s ladies-in-waiting was pregnant when her tummy swelled up. She was unmarried and this caused a terrible scandal and she lost her job, despite her claims that she couldn’t be pregnant. It later turned out that the poor young woman (whose name was Lady Flora Hastings) wasn’t pregnant at all but had cancer of the liver, which was eventually correctly diagnosed by someone else. The good thing was that she had cleared her name. The sad thing was that the cancer killed her soon after.

  Mrs McFeeeeeeee talked on, and Eddie listened with rapt attention. Meanwhile, not five miles away, in an abandoned crofter’s cottage – yup, you’re right, it was the cottage and not the crofter that was abandoned (the crofter having won a lot of sheep in a card game in the local pub had moved to a better cottage nearer the pub) – a very secret meeting was taking place. The three men present all stayed in the shadows and spoke in hushed tones.

  ‘Do ya have the weapon?’ asked one.

  ‘I thought you had it,’ said the second.

  ‘Do nae worry, I have it,’ said the third.

  ‘Are you both clear on your duties?’ said the first.

  ‘Aye,’ said the second.

  ‘Aye,’ nodded the third.

  ‘If anything should go wrong with the first shot …’ said the first.

  ‘It won’t,’ said the second.

  ‘There’ll be no Scottish blood on our hands,’ said the third.

  There was a noise from outside. The three men froze, then the first tiptoed over to the window. He lifted the edge of a piece of hessian sacking that had been nailed up in front of the window to create a curtain. He looked through the grimy glass into the failing light of evening. A shaggy mountain goat trotted daintily through what had once been the crofter’s small garden, sending a pebble skittering across the ground.

  ‘False alarm,’ said the first.

  ‘When Victoria comes calling we’ll give her a day to remember, all right!’ said the second.

  ‘That we will,’ grinned the third.

  ‘Careful you don’t get the rifle tangled up in your beard, Hamish!’ said the second.

  ‘Ssssh!’ said the first. ‘No names, remember.’

  Hamish grinned again. The rifle he was holding was taller than he was.

  Episode 8

  A Highland Fling

  IIn which plans are made and we meet the Q-PUS

  In the days that followed, more news about Queen Victoria’s forthcoming visit became known. She’d be staying on the Gloaming estate (just a mile or so to the west of Tall Hall) at Gloaming Castle as a guest of Sir Rumpus Rhome (pronounced ‘Room’), who was an absentee landlord. This meant that although he owned hundreds of acres of the surrounding countryside, he actually lived somewhere else completely. In Sir Rumpus’s case, this was London, where he also owned large tracts of land. His main residence was Number One Rhome Square, which was always written as Number One with letters, and never with the simple numeral ‘1’. It was a very beautiful townhouse built in the classical style with stucco pilasters all along the front. (Stucco is plaster meant to look like stone, and pilasters are sort-of fake columns that are for decoration rather than to hold things up.)

  Sir Rumpus hated everything about his Scottish estate except for the hunting. He hated the mountains. He hated all that fresh air. And, most of all, he hated the Scots, who ‘spoke funny’ and, in his opinion, looked at him in a funny way too.

  In his opinion – and the only opinion that seemed to matter to Sir Rumpus was his own – the Scots were a disrespectful bunch. Sir Rumpus, whom you’ve probably guessed by now was English, was big on respect. He liked people bowing and scraping before him – and even touching their forelocks if they could find them – and he got plenty of that from people in and around Number One Rhome (pronounced ‘Room’) Square … but these Scottish people seemed much fiercer and more independent. They didn’t seem to understand that he was not only English but also a knight – a ‘Sir’ – which made him doubly superior to them. In fact, he had the worrying suspicion that they did as he instructed only because he was paying them, and they still begrudged his presence, which was a sorry state of affairs.

  Gloaming Castle still stands today but it’s no longer a private house. It’s an exclusive Scottish country-house hotel (according to the glossy brochure) and I stayed there for one night when researching the events that you’re now reading. I’d like to have stayed longer but the price of half a grapefruit on the breakfast menu was more than I’d normally pay for an entire meal for the two of us, including all the lemonade you can drink.

  Number One Rhome Square is no more. Neither is Rhome Square itself, come to that. In the First World War (aka World War One, The Great War or The War To End All Wars) the house was blown up by a primitive bomb dropped from a Zeppelin (which was a big airship). During the Second World War (aka World War Two, or The War That Followed The War To End All Wars), the square was destroyed by a number of bombs dropped from aeroplanes.

  After the war, the square was ‘redeveloped’ and in its place stands a very fine multistorey car park, one of the largest in the city and much appreciated by businessmen and women who would otherwise find it difficult to find parking spaces in the area. It’s called ‘Rhome Square Car Park’ which is the only reminder of what once stood there. Everyone pronounces it ‘Rome Square’ rather than ‘Room Square’ which would really annoy Sir Rumpus if he hadn’t died a long time ago.

  Sir Rumpus Rhome’s love of hunting can’t be overstated. He loved killing living things and the bigger the better. If he could have found a way of shipping elephants to his Scottish estate just so that he could shoot them he would have. An elephant with antlers would have been the icing on the cake. Some hunters love the thrill of the chase. Sir Rumpus’s dictum, however, was: ‘The easier the better.’ Sometimes he instructed his gamekeeper to hide behind a bush with, say, a deer, and to release it just as Sir Rumpus was ready to shoot something. This resulted in more than one gamekeeper being shot in error, which meant even more excitement for Sir Rumpus and a small bonus for the injured men.

  Queen Victoria and her party – which meant the people who travelled with her, and didn’t necessarily involve balloons and loud music – would be spending a weekend at Gloaming and her visit would include watching an afternoon’s hunting.

  Of course, Her Majesty Queen Victoria would not actually be taking part in the hunt. Oh, no. She had very clear views on women and hunting. Once, when she learnt that one of her granddaughters had been hunting, she sent her a letter saying, ‘I was rather shocked to hear of you shooting,’ and ‘to look on is harmless, but it is not ladylike to kill animals’. Then she used a brilliant phrase: ‘It might do you great harm if that were known, as only fast ladies do such things.’

  Wow! Obviously, getting the
reputation as a ‘fast lady’ was Not A Good Thing. Sir Rumpus and all the male guests would do the hunting. Victoria and the ladies would simply do the looking on. Sir Rumpus was honoured and delighted.

  So were Mr and Mrs McFeeeeeeee. They’d received an invitation. The Q-PUS (the Queen’s Private Under Secretary) had been sent up a few days in advance and, in addition to all the bigwigs/big cheeses/top dogs/A-list people who always got invited to such events, had been asked to additionally invite ‘colourful local characters’.

  Queen Victoria was big on colourful local characters. Her security detail – in other words those in charge of her safety – were not. ‘Colourful local characters’ often turned out to be ‘eccentrics’ and ‘eccentrics’ often turned out to be nutters.

  Mr McFeeeeeeee was a pretty safe bet. He not only had a suitably funny Scottish name with an interesting story behind it for Her Majesty to find entertaining – ancestors jumping out of trees and strangling people with their bare hands – but he was also a lawyer and could be relied on to behave and not drop his trousers halfway through the proceeding in order to show the Queen a birthmark on his left buttock, as a previous ‘colourful local character’/eccentric/nutter had done at a house party in Yorkshire. (There is a strong possibility that the latter was Mad Uncle Jack’s brother George, of burning-down-the-Houses-of-Parliament fame, though his diary entry for that day is barely legible, the ink having been smudged by what appears to be liquid paraffin.)

  Mrs McFeeeeeeee would be invited to attend the royal festivities simply because she was Mr McFeeeeeeee’s wife. Little Magnus McFeeeeeeee was not to be invited. ‘I wouldnae come if I was asked,’ he’d told Eddie, spitting on the ground, and Eddie hadn’t doubted him for a second.

  The Q-PUS had also made inquiries (which are like enquiries but spelt with an ‘i’) about the owner of Tall Hall. ‘The MacMuckle family were known to the late King, and Her Majesty is most eager that the present owner, or his representative, attend,’ he told Angus McFeeeeeeee who, as well as being an invitee, had been given the job of suggesting other suitable candidates for invitation to the Q-PUS, and for rounding them up.

  ‘I have the great-nephew of the last surviving MacMuckle staying with me as we speak,’ he’d proudly told the Queen’s man, ‘but he’s just a child.’

  ‘Excellent!’ said the Q-PUS. ‘Her Majesty loves children.’ This was fortunate because, by the end of her life, she was to have over forty – yes, forty – grandchildren. Imagine if, as a granny, she’d been asked to babysit them all on the same night!

  ‘Master Edmund Dickens, for that is the laddie’s name, is the self-same wee Edmund who found the stolen Dog’s Bone Diamond belonging to the fabulously rich American dog-food tycoon Eli Bowser,’ said Angus McFeeeeeeee, rather proudly.

  ‘I’m sure Her Majesty will be most interested to meet him,’ said the Q-PUS. ‘I seem to remember that a stuffed ferret was somehow involved in the process.’ He vaguely recalled having had the newspaper reports of the whole extraordinary affair read to him by the Queen’s Private Under Under Secretary (the Q-PUUS) or the Queen’s Private Assistant Under Secretary (the Q-PAUS). They looked very similar to each other, so he couldn’t remember for sure which it had been.

  ‘Stoat,’ said Angus McFeeeeeeee.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said the Q-PUS.

  ‘It was a stuffed stoat,’ explained McFeeeeeeee. ‘Not a stuffed ferret.’

  ‘I see.’ The Q-PUS nodded, as though this were an important detail. Perhaps it was.

  And so plans were made in this way, and the date of the arrival of HM (Her Majesty) drew closer and closer.

  Episode 9

  A Right Royal Arrival

  In which a jam-filled biscuit and a lone piper get trodden on by royal feet

  When the day of the Queen’s visit finally arrived, the headteacher – well, the truth be told, the only teacher – of the local school had not only written a special song for the occasion but had also found time it to teach her pupils to sing when HM Queen Victoria stepped from the royal train on to the green carpet. Yes, of course, it should have been a red carpet but, at the dead of night, a group of unidentified anti-royalists had stolen the red carpet, which had been locked in the Station Master’s office. By the time Mr McTafferty had discovered the theft, there was no time for him to order a replacement but, making one of those snap decisions that had seen him rise through the ranks of railway company employees, he decided that a green carpet was better than no carpet at all, and had ‘borrowed’ the stair carpet from Mrs MacHine’s cottage who, being in hospital with injuries sustained from being flattened by a woodworm-ridden grand piano, wouldn’t notice it had gone. Or so he hoped.

  With the aid of a tailor’s tape measure and a complicated diagram supplied in advance by the Q-PUS, McTafferty had calculated exactly where the door of the Queen’s carriage would come to rest and, therefore, where the carpet should be placed. He had just had enough time to run across with the carpet from Mrs MacHine’s cottage and unroll it across the platform in position when a cry from one of the crowd indicated that the royal train was coming into view.

  Imagine the scene. Go on, please imagine the scene. It saves me having to describe it. Think of people in their (Scottish) Sunday best. Think of bunting and Union Flags strung up everywhere, like paper chains come Christmastime. Think of children with freshly scrubbed faces and hair dampened and flattened. Think of a small – a very small – brass band with kilted bandsmen, their gleaming instruments glinting in the sun. Can you do that for me? I’m most grateful. Now throw in a buzz of anticipation and a feeling of great excitement and then we can all move on.

  The train came to halt with a loud hissssssssssssssssssssssssss (much louder than the hiss of escaping gas in Episode 1 of Dreadful Acts) and the band struck up a suitably stirring tune for the occasion. It reached a crashing climax as the door to the carriage was opened from the outside by two strapping guardsmen in ‘traditional’ garb, and a royal leg appeared. Then Miss MacTash (the headteacher) raised her baton, and her three rows of smartly dressed pupils began to sing:

  ‘Welcome Royal Majesty,

  Our mighty Queen Victoria,

  You are Britain’s finest

  Which is why we all adore ya!’

  There were a few raised eyebrows and mutterings in the crowd at this last line; some from people who certainly didn’t adore her, and some from those who did, but thought that ‘we all adore ya!’ wasn’t appropriate language with which to address Her Majesty. In fact, not fifteen months later, Miss MacTash was forced to retire from her post at the school a year earlier than she originally planned. This was partly as a result of this song, and partly to do with a playground incident involving one of the youngest – and certainly lightest – children in the school and a golden eagle (one of a local nesting pair).

  Queen Victoria, on the other hand, seemed delighted by the welcoming committee and charmed by the small group of singing schoolchildren. She probably wasn’t listening to the lyrics, however, because she was distracted by something she’d stepped on which, on closer inspection by the Sergeant-at-Arms who was accompanying her, turned out to be a jam-filled biscuit.

  Mrs MacHine was particularly fond of jam-filled biscuits and left them dotted about the house, some deliberately – should the need for a biscuit suddenly come upon her – and some by mistake, when she’d put them down for a moment and forgotten about them, or they’d slipped from the edge of one of her bone-china plates. The offending biscuit, which had to be peeled from the sole of Victoria’s boot, was from the latter category. Mrs MacHine must have dropped it on the stairs and, in his hurry to remove her stair carpet, Station Master McTafferty hadn’t noticed that it was still attached.

  Once removed from the royal boot (her left), the Sergeant-at-Arms handed the flattened biscuit to the Q-PUS, who was walking two paces behind him, who, in turn, handed it to the Q-PUUS, who was walking two paces behind him, who, in turn, handed it to the Q-PAUS, who was still emergi
ng from the carriage and, having missed what had happened, assumed that they’d all been handed biscuits by way of a welcome, so ate this one with a beaming smile on his face. That night, he wrote in his diary that it had tasted ‘a little leathery’, which was hardly surprising under the circumstances (or under the royal boot).

  Now Lord Rhome (pronounced ‘Room’) stepped forward and bowed deeply. ‘Welcome, Your Majesty,’ he said, eyeing the green carpet with some puzzlement before straightening up again. ‘My coach is at your disposal,’ he added, indicating its whereabouts with a dramatic flourish of the arm. It would have been hard for her to have missed it. The green stair carpet ended at a gate at the edge of the platform, opening on to the road where His Lordship’s fine black coach stood, the door held open by a liveried footman. (Liveried has nothing to do with describing Eddie’s father’s paintings, which usually had a liver-sausagy look about them, but means that the footman was in a special footman’s uniform.) As the name suggests, footmen either ran after the coach on foot or jumped up on to special running plates at the back of the coach and stood there (on their feet). Only a coachman actually got to sit on the thing and drive it.

  Those not familiar with the area would have assumed that the two liveried – there’s that word again – footmen were those usually employed by Lord Rhome at his Gloaming estate, but they’d be wrong. These two men were, in fact, what we’d today call ‘undercover policemen’; highly trained to protect the monarch from any surprise attacks. They were from New Scotland Yard in London, the old Scotland Yard (which they’d called plain Scotland Yard, after the palace used by visiting Kings and Queens of Scotland back in the days before Scotland was ruled by the English) having been blown up by Fenians in May 1884, which was somewhat embarrassing for the policemen who worked there because their job was to put a stop to that kind of thing. It’s a bit like a fire-prevention officer’s office burning down. You feel sorry and all that, and are glad that he managed to save the goldfish in time, but it’s funny in a way too. Or, at least, the idea of it is. If you’re wondering what Fenians (pronounced as though spelt Feenians) are, I don’t blame you. You’ve probably guessed that they were people of some sort, which is a good guess, but I should explain that they were Irish people, and not only Irish people, but also Irish people who generally didn’t like the idea of the British monarchy and the British Government – the one with the capital ‘G’ – ruling Ireland, which made Fenians particularly unpopular with the English authorities, who thought that they had every right to be ruling Ireland because – er – England, Scotland and Wales combined to make a bigger island than Ireland … so there! (Or something like that. Who knows?)