Beware The Peckish Dead!

By William Stafford

Victorian hack Hector Mortlake and his trusty valet Cuthbert are at it again. This third outing takes them to the Scottish Highlands - but that’s just the start. A mysterious portal and a ghostly gang of ghouls threaten to separate the pair for good. With a host of new characters and their craziest story yet, Hector and Cuthbert deliver high adventure and shameless innuendo in equal measure. Fans of William Stafford’s inimitable style will not be disappointed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AG Books
• Release date: Jun 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781785386893

Book preview

Oliver

Chapter One

There are times when I cannot help feeling like a fraud. Yes, I make my living from the purveyance of fictions, concocted in what Cuthbert would no doubt call my ‘nut’ or something equally charming - but not so much of a living that I might give up the whole writing business and do something else. Preferably nothing. In fact, the income from my books (yes, plural! i.e. two) had dropped off of late, like a suicide from a clifftop. My second novel, which is about the Aztec deity Xolotl, had flopped disastrously. It seems people aren’t interested in religion any longer. I blame that Darwin fellow. That was when the rot set in.

Luckily for me, but quite the contrary for my publisher, I was locked into a three-book deal. I had one last chance to match the roaring success of my debut before I would be cast out into the unforgiving snows of the unpublished author. Had my first, international bestseller been a fluke? I could not help thinking it and, when in my blackest fugues, it took all of Cuthbert’s perkiness and cheeky Cockney charm to rouse so much as a smile from me - let alone anything else. It’s not you, it’s them, was his constant refrain, meaning the book-buying public. You’re ahead of your time. Seeing I was unconvinced, he would peck my neck and blow in my ear until I was altogether distracted from my sulk.

Currently, it was not blowing my ears that I was concerned about. There was a decided draught wafting around my knees, threatening to leap up my thighs and billow out the heavy fabric of the kilt Cuthbert had obliged me to wear for our hike in the Highlands. I have read somewhere that for a Sassenach such as I to wear a tartan to which he was not entitled was a capital offence in these parts. I expected to be run through by someone’s caber or something at any moment. No, not caber; something else. What do they call those daggers they slip down their coarse, knee-high socks? I would have to consult an encyclopaedia. If I am to be summarily executed for crimes against cloth, I should like to know what the thing is that does the job.

Yes, we were in the Scottish Highlands, too far north and west of Edinburgh for my liking and my comfort, having tootled all the way up from London. Bessie had served us well, but she was now resting in the stable of an inn in some teensy-tiny village several miles away, down in the glen. They have no garages up here, of course. The motor car, still in its infancy, had not yet caught on. I have had to grow accustomed to the stares we get as we hurtle along the country lanes, sometimes at speeds in excess of eight miles per hour.

It had taken a long time to get here. I should have been glad of the opportunity to stretch my legs, exposed as they now were to the elements. But the old fug was upon me and Cuthbert, ever the attentive valet, was well aware of my foul mood.

Sticks out a mile, he returned, skipping over a string of stepping stones as though born to it, like some kind of mountain goat.

At once I clasped my hands over my borrowed sporran.

Your face, I mean, he said, kissing my cheek. I blushed and lifted my hands to ward him off. Nobody won’t see, he laughed. Only the sheep and the squirrels.

Voyeurs, the lot of them, I muttered, darkly. The hillsides around us were dotted with clumps of white. Those sheep would have to have the eyesight of an eagle to see anything.

I brought you up here for a reason, Cuthbert smirked. On this grey day - they have a lot of them up here, I believe - his handsome smile was like a ray of sunshine, a blast of warmth through the chilly dampness of the air. Would that he would direct that blast elsewhere! I was fearful of icicles forming beneath my kilt.

You and your reasons, I scoffed. Dragging me up here.

How many more times? It ain’t drag. A kilt is a man’s garment.

"Bringing me up here, then, I amended my complaint. When we’ve a perfectly serviceable, perfectly private room down at the inn."

He rolled those sapphire stones he uses for eyes. I see your mood is up, he laughed with the briefest glance at my sporran. All that kind of thing will have to wait. We’re up here for a different reason. Here.

He fished in the depths of his own sporran and withdrew a small, square box, the kind which might contain a purchase from a jeweller’s shop. I gasped and again glanced around to see if our ovine observers were still watching. My heart raced; the blood pumped in my ears like a galloping stag.

My darling boy! my voice caught in my throat. I am honoured, but what you are proposing...

Cuthbert’s adorable nose wrinkled adorably. Me? I ain’t proposing nothing.

My breathless grin faltered. What?

This ain’t a proposal, squire. Two blokes, getting wed! he laughed. I can see that going down well with the archbishop.

Never mind going down with the archbishop, I snapped, reaching for the box. What is this nonsense?

Cuthbert was too quick for me. His hand darted out of my reach and my forward momentum caused me to lose my balance. I slipped on the glistening grass and landed flat on my backside, my kilt flying up like chequered wings.

My giggling valet extended his hand to help me to my feet. Perhaps I ought to pop the question, gov. Now that you’ve given me a glimpse of your wedding tackle.

I scowled. I’m pleased you’re amused. I smoothed the kilt down, and rearranged my sporran, holding it firmly in place. At his insistence, I had ‘gone native’ and obeyed the unwritten rule (or perhaps it is written somewhere) that nothing should be worn under the kilt. I wouldn’t say worn, exactly, just - since taking Cuthbert into my employ - rather more well-used than previously.

My backside was cold and wet from its contact with the ground and I was beginning to shiver. What is this all about, damn you! I snarled.

You! Cuthbert looked hurt. It’s all about you! It’s always all about you!

He made it sound as though this was a bad thing.

Go on, I said, my tone softening despite myself.

I brung you all the way up here for inspiration, didn’t I? You need to write a new book, don’t you? You need ideas for a story, don’t you?

Well, yes, I-

Well, then. That’s why I brung you and this little beauty to this picturesque spot. He brandished the box again. He held it under my nose and lifted the lid on its little brass hinge.

The box contained no engagement ring, I can tell you that. My eyes were met with flashes of colour. Even on this dark day, the object caught what little light there was. Sparks danced before my eyes in a rainbow of hues.

You remember it, don’t you? Cuthbert urged me to make a response.

Yes... I said uncertainly. I was somewhat hypnotised by the object’s beauty - but I still saw him roll his eyes again. He does a lot of that when I’m around.

You remember who it belonged to, don’t you?

Well, I...

I had no clue.

Cuthbert expelled air in frustration. I’ll give you a clue, shall I? Pith helmet, safari suit. Wife the same. No?

My God... I took the box from his grasp so I might peer at the contents more closely. Charles Bickers!

The box contained a scarab beetle of indescribable beauty. Fabergé himself could not fashion a more beautiful, intricate object, and here was a specimen, forged by Nature herself, a creeping, crawling jewel - Oh, it wasn’t creeping and crawling just now; the thing was quite, quite dead. Death had not withered it. It was perfectly preserved, pinned to the inside of the box, hovering over the cushioned base.

Memory stirred.

I remember this, I nodded. Old Charles and his wife - what was her name?

Mrs Bickers? Cuthbert offered.

Something like that. They found this creature in Scotland, they told me- My jaw dropped and I took in our surroundings anew. Cuthbert nodded, encouraging the penny to drop. And - and - they said they had no idea how it had come to be here. How it was a species native only to certain parts of Egypt and - and that it had become extinct centuries ago!

That’s it, sir! That’s it exactly. You solve the mystery of the beetle and bingo! You’ve got yourself a new book.

The Mystery of the Beetle.

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that is not the title of this book. But at that time, I thought it was going to be. Oh, I’d dress it up somehow, to give it more of a hook. The Scarab Affair, perhaps. Or The Great Egyptian Bug Caper...

Like our displaced insect, Cuthbert and I were bumbling around in the back of the Scottish beyond. Cuthbert was looking to me in anticipation of a reply. A thank-you, perhaps.

Well, I conceded, I owe it to old Charles, I suppose. Not that I’m blaming myself for what happened to him and his good lady - Esme! That was it! That was her name!

Peculiar woman. Took to dressing exactly like her husband, who was always togged out as though every day was an African expedition.

I suppose in their honour, I could poke around, find out the circumstances of the bug’s presence so far from its long ago home. And if I got a story out of it, so much the better.

As it was, I wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders - a bit like Bessie when we’d reached the almost perpendicular, rocky roads they go in for around here.

Say thank you, Cuthbert, Cuthbert prompted.

I snapped the box shut and shoved it at him. What else? I asked, taking in the landscape. Even in drizzle, it was a dramatic sight. I’d just rather be viewing it through the windowpane of my cosy room at the inn or on the front of a picture postcard. Rolling slopes of green, close-cropped by the sheep and rabbits, peppered with white and purple heather, and streaked with silver strands of streams and rills, like veins in cheese.

Cheese.

My belly rumbled at the word. Cuthbert dug out a greaseproof paper package from his sporran. A cheese sandwich for my luncheon. He thinks of everything.

He also pulled out a map and a notebook. These was Charles’s, he explained. All his notes on how he found that little bugger. He consulted a chart and then compared the view before him. Somewhere around...here.

He pointed across the brook that babbled indifferently at our feet and to a rocky outcrop, huddled like an old man, cloaked in verdant moss.

I pointed out that I had barely made headway with my sandwich but the blighter wilfully ignored me and strode off, over the stepping stones and up the slope. My own balance was less than steady and I was afraid of dropping my sandwich in the water. By the time I had negotiated the slippery surfaces, Cuthbert was more than halfway to the target. He paused to wait, taking a snifter from a hip flask - What the bloody hell else did he have in that sporran, I wondered?

I would enjoy finding out. Later.

When I joined him, he was munching heartily on an apple. He smoothed the map as best as he could onto a flattish stone and pointed something out. Well, a map may as well be all hieroglyphs to me but I wasn’t going to let on. I nodded and grunted, keeping my mouth full of cheese sandwich so that etiquette would preclude the need for commentary.

The inn is down there... Here’s the path we took, the brook...

I watched his finger trace the lines of the map, murmuring affirmatively as though I was the master geographer encouraging a student.

And here is that rock there, he pointed at the map with one hand and the craggy outcrop ahead with the other. Charlie’s journal says he and the Mrs come across the beetle up there.

"Charles, please, I insisted. Have some respect."

"Mr Bickers, said Cuthbert. I’ll read you what it says, shall I?"

***

The Journal of Charles Bickers

Tuesday 19th

The old ball-and-chain and I were having quite a time of it, I can tell you. We had been rather lucky with the weather too. Just the ticket for traipsing around the glens: bright and cloudless but with a fresh breeze every now and then to remind you who was boss. In the sunlight, the colours of the specimens we collected were all the more vibrant, as though each butterfly was calling out to us, Charles and Esme! Catch us in your nets! Gas us in your jars! Pin us to your boards!

Well, perhaps that’s going a bit too far. Whoever heard of a suicidal butterfly - apart from that one in the opera (Hope I’m not giving the game away there!)

Anyway, we gathered up a fair few between us, marking the location of each find on our maps and labelling the jars with the utmost care. I was all for calling it a day and strolling down to the tavern for an early supper when Esme, who rarely gives the impression of paying me the slightest attention, seemed to be standing in a trance, her gaze fixed on something I could not see.

I hitched my satchel onto my shoulder and picked my way across the sedge-tufted ground to join her. What’s that, old girl? I said, in all innocence.

It broke whatever spell she’d been under. She awarded me one of her trademark withering looks. There is no need to address me like I’m a bloodhound picking up a scent, she sneered. The splash of freckles across her nose and cheeks disappeared into the red flash of her annoyance.

Something’s in your nose. I did my best not to back away - my wife can be a formidable woman when her hackles are raised. I was thinking of supper.

Never mind your damned belly! she snapped. Is it still there?

My belly?

No, imbecile. On my sock! Is it still there?

Her eyes were signalling that I should take a look, which seemed dashed inconvenient when it would be the work of a second for her to bend her neck or lift her leg so she could see for herself - whatever it was she was going on about.

I let out a sigh - mainly to cover the grunt of exertion that escaped me as I stooped to the ground at her feet. Which is where Esme prefers me to be, of course.