The Brotherhood of Man: The Periwinkle Perspective, #5

By Paul Eccentric

London, 1900, and the twentieth century beckons. It is a time of change, but change is not for everyone...

The world is evolving at an unanticipated rate, both socially and technologically, due; largely, to the exploits of our heroes Space Captain Gordon Periwinkle and Professor Hamble Blaise. However, in light of Gordon's perceived faux pas: allowing his half-sister to step past him and claim the Moon for humanity rather than mankind, old prejudices have begun to re-surface. In truth, these naysayers have been working behind the scenes for years to ensure a future based upon the ingrained inequalities of the past. Perhaps it is time for The Brotherhood of Man to step out of the shadows and take back the Empire, and for us to see how their actions in the past have imbued them with the power that they have today...

'The Brotherhood of Man' is a collection of short, interconnected tales, contained within this single, spellbinding, steampunk volume!

  *Discover the truth behind Queen Victoria's secret substitution!

  *Hear how the Martian 'Cell' was able to infiltrate Georgian society and thus influence the future!

  *Learn the secrets of Count Von Greckle's mysterious alien origins!

  *Witness the fallout from the introduction of the first teabag!!

                                                       ADVENTURE FORTH!

 

These books are joyful, rollicking and riotous romps through familiar yet fondly reimagined SF territory, as seen through the kaleidoscopic prism of a deft steampunk narrative. Breathlessly told, the characters hurtle through the stories which are enriched with all the detail that fans of Victorian expression, fashion, architecture and machinery crave from the depths of their darkly-goggled souls.

 Lee Sullivan: Graphic Artist (Marvel UK, Doctor Who, Rivers of London, 2000AD)

 

Bravo, Paul Eccentric, on this barnstorming thrill ride of a book! The Periwinkle Perspective has been my gateway read into the surreal world of Steampunk Victoriana:  clever, witty and satisfyingly literate.

Jessica Martin: Actor, artist and author (Doctor Who, Spitting Image, Spamalot)

 

Mr Eccentric throws words around like Jackson Pollock threw paint. Like Michelangelo was with paint Paul is with words, a master of both darkness and the light and while I wouldn't let this man paint my downstairs toilet, I do love his books.

 James Talon:  Infamous Artist, Musician and Cultural Thief (The Great Art Swindle)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Caffeine Nights Publishing
• Release date: May 13, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224739288

Book preview

Table of Contents

The Brotherhood of Man (The Periwinkle Perspective, #5)

No. 1, 'THE BIG SWITCH'

No. 2: 'HEROES OF THE EMPIRE'

No. 3: 'RENAISSANCE MAN'

No. 4: 'DEFENCE OF THE REALM'

No. 5: 'IF IT AIN'T BROKE'

No. 6: 'THE LAST TEMPTATION'

No. 7: 'THE TALE OF LUCINDA STUMP'

No. 8: 'CODE NAME: UNCLE'

No.9: 'SPROUT'S DAY OUT'

No.10: 'REALITY SIX'

No.11: 'THE EMPIRE'S MOST WANTED'

No.12 'BURLINGTON BERTIE'

No.13: 'FAMILY TIES'

No.14: 'LIFE ON MARS'

No.15: 'THE LODGE'

THANK YOU!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Published by Caffeine Nights Publishing 2024

Copyright © Paul Eccentric 2024

Paul Eccentric has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998 to be identified as the author of this work.

CONDITIONS OF SALE

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

This book has been sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Published in Great Britain by

Caffeine Nights Publishing

Amity House

71 Buckthorne Road

Minster on Sea

Isle of Sheppey

ME12 3RD

caffeinenightsbooks.com

Also available as a paperback

ISBN: 978-1-913200-31-2

––––––––

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-913200-31-2

Everything else by

Default, Luck and Accident

This book is dedicated to all those fantastic models who have given us their time, their facial features and their bodies to help bring to life all of the weird and wonderful characters within.

Dean Turner, Lynda Easton, Nikki Bloomer, Ian Newman, Emma Sparre-Newman, Jen Carter, Duncan, Carter, Caz Tricks, Mark Ward, Steph Ward, Sarah Coupland Jenkins, Craig Jenkins and soon to be introduced Lizzie Calvert as Boudicca Periwinkle (book 6)

The story continues...

––––––––

Paul Eccentric, May 2024

These books are joyful, rollicking and riotous romps through familiar yet fondly reimagined SF territory, as seen through the kaleidoscopic prism of a deft steampunk narrative. Breathlessly told, the characters hurtle through the stories which are enriched with all the detail that fans of Victorian expression, fashion, architecture and machinery crave from the depths of their darkly-goggled souls.

Lee Sullivan: Graphic Artist (Marvel UK, Doctor Who, Rivers of London, 2000AD)

Bravo, Paul Eccentric, on this barnstorming thrill-ride of a book! The Periwinkle Perspective has been my gateway read into the surreal world of Steampunk Victoriana:  clever, witty and satisfyingly literate.

Jessica Martin: Actor, artist and author (Doctor Who, Spitting Image, Spamalot)

Mr Eccentric throws words around like Jackson Pollock threw paint. Like Michelangelo was with paint Paul is with words, a master of both darkness and the light and while I wouldn’t let this man paint my downstairs toilet, I do love his books.

James Talon:  Infamous Artist, Musician and Cultural Thief (The Great Art Swindle)

Victoria Regina, Queen of Steam:

It’s likely that she’s not all that she seems.

Is it possible we lost her

and that this one’s an imposter?

Victoria, the conspiracy theorist’s dream!

The Periwinkle Perspective

volume five:

The Brotherhood of Man

PREFACE...

No. 1, 'THE BIG SWITCH'

No. 2: 'HEROES OF THE EMPIRE'

No. 3: 'RENAISSANCE MAN'

No. 4: 'DEFENCE OF THE REALM'

No. 5: 'IF IT AIN'T BROKE'

No. 6: 'THE LAST TEMPTATION'

No. 7: 'THE TALE OF LUCINDA STUMP'

No. 8: 'CODE NAME: UNCLE'

No.9: 'SPROUT'S DAY OUT'

No.10: 'REALITY SIX'

No.11: 'THE EMPIRE'S MOST WANTED'

No.12 'BURLINGTON BERTIE'

No.13: 'FAMILY TIES'

No.14: 'LIFE ON MARS'

No.15: 'THE LODGE'

THANK YOU!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PREFACE...

Everything has changed!

For those of you who have been with us since Volume One, 'The Giant Step', you will be aware of the various timeline shifts that have occurred over the course of the narrative of Volumes three and four, 'The Story Untold' and 'For All We Know', respectively. Fret not, loyal readers, for a resolution is coming, though not until Volume Six!

In the meantime, the tales that you are about to embark upon are, for the most part, set in the timeline established by Alyce Troll in the closing pages of Volume Four. They are therefore set post-volume four, but pre-volume six, though in a timeline that overwrites the events of volume four for all of our characters, bar Alyce herself.

Clear?

Some of these events, however, such as story two: 'Heroes of the Empire', and story three: 'Defence of the Realm', would also have occurred in much the same way had Alyce not have rewound reality and are merely addenda and sidebars for our regular cast of characters: solo adventures, for your delectation; insights into their own perspectives on the world that I have been attempting to create.

In order to avoid any possible confusion, I have therefore developed the following key to clarify exactly where they are intended to sit in the overall 'Periwinkle Perspective' canon...

*For stories set within the original timeline, i.e., before Gordon and Hamble rewound, at the end of chapter five of Volume Three, the code (R1) standing for 'REALITY ONE' will supersede the date.

*For stories set after this event, but prior to Alyce first hitting the rewind switch in the closing moments of chapter thirteen of volume four, I will use the marker: (R2).

*As I am sure you will remember, it took Alyce several attempts at rewinding the events of June 1897 before she was able to achieve a stable 'present' in which to proceed from. These would be the brief realities: (R3-R6).

*All stories set after this point (but prior to book six) are therefore prefixed: (R7), a reality that begins with the version of Gordon and Beatrice's wedding, during which nobody died.

If in doubt (or if volume five is the first volume of this series that you have chanced upon), it could not possibly hurt either to purchase or re-visit the following books:

THE PERIWINKLE PERSPECTIVE:

Vol. 1: 'The Giant Step'

Vol. 2: 'Those Among Us'

Vol. 3: 'The Story Untold'

Vol. 4: 'For All We Know'

All will be revealed in Volume 6: ‘WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND’! It’ll be worth it, promise!

No. 1, 'THE BIG SWITCH'

18th of November, 1895,

Bishops Waltham,

Hampshire.

Dear brother,

It is with a heart full of sadness, guilt, and indeed shame that I contact you now after all this time, estranged, but be assured that I do so humbly and with sincerity, my intent, in the hope that you will receive my explanation in the good faith that it is given. It is with regret that I have to inform you that I am not long for this world, though in many ways I am sure that it could be said that I have long outstayed my welcome. However, I know that peace shall never be mine, lest I first unburden my soul and admit to you the whole sordid truth as to why I have remained aloof these long years past. What follows is an honest and accurate account of a series of peculiar events that occurred during my time as Queen Victoria's Physician-in-Ordinary. I would urge you, in the strongest possible terms, never to divulge that which I am about to impart, and that when your own time comes to depart this mortal realm, you first bequeath this letter to your son on the very same understanding. For whilst this tale needs to be noted, I do not believe that the world is yet ready to hear it.

As you will no doubt have already observed, the parcel that accompanies this letter contains three old newspapers. The headline spanning the first of these: a copy of The Times, dated the fourth day of February 1862, grimly declaring, 'WEST END GARROTER STRIKES AGAIN!' I have kept as a reminder to myself of the terrible cost of the Mephistophelean pact into which I entered that fateful day. You may recall a spate of similar murders being committed in London at around this time; so many so, in fact, that this particular victim's death was described by the article's author as merely 'an unfortunate addendum to the list of apparently arbitrary victims of an as yet unidentified serial killer', rather than being investigated as a crime on its own merit.

For what on the surface may have appeared to some to have been nought but a sorry statistic: a case of young Eliza Babbelforth's having been in the wrong place at entirely the wrong time, in truth her murder had far more sinister connotations.

On page four of the second paper, a copy of The Evening Standard, dated two days later, you will read of an apparently unconnected crime reported under the banner 'THE LADY VANISHES' which goes on to describe how two Chinese stagehands had been found dead inside a laundry basket, centre stage during a music hall routine at a penny-gaff in the East End.

With the exception of the perpetrators themselves and the man responsible for ordering all three killings, only I have been able to join the dots between them and see the wider plot revealed, until now...

And n-n-now, for my next t-t-trick, please w-w-welcome to the st-stage: Her R-royal H-h-h-high-n-ness, Queen V-v—v—victoria!

These were the very words spoken by The Great Scambiare, a two-bob illusionist who at that time had a nightly residency at Wilton's Music Hall in Grace's Alley, Whitechapel. It had not been the first time that I had ventured so far south for an evening's lowbrow distraction, and exactly as had happened on my previous visit, with the striking up of the band at the arrival, stage left, of Ena, the illusionist in question's glamourous assistant: bedecked in a pitch-perfect rendition of the reigning monarch's widow's weaves, something of a panic had broken out among the punters in the cheap seats as they had scrabbled to rise, to remove their hats, and to bow, all in the same moment, each intent on showing their deference in the wake of the unexpected appearance of their queen. They were a gullible bunch; these cockney types, I noted once again, were far less jaded in their worldview and more than a mote less cynical than their aspirational brethren among the middle classes.

Damn my eyes, Jenner, old boy, you were right! Said my acquaintance beside me, whom I had brought along with me on this second visit in the hope that his professional opinion might be a match for my own. Such an extraordinary likeness, what? He was to remark, and "for a moment there, I almost believed it was her!"

Remarkable, isn't she? I replied, in all likelihood, a little smugly, though, sadly, I felt it only fair to warn him, she's the only part of the act that holds any water.

Marmaduke Fotherinsquire: society stylist extraordinaire; whose client list (alongside the Queen herself, of course) had at that time included the cream of London's most influential ladies, such as the 'Petticoats' themselves: Princesses Beatrice and Louise; the Prime Minister's wife: Viscountess Palmerston; novelist George Eliot; and, until her recent death, Victoria's own dear mother, the Duchess of Kent, was; next to myself, the only man whom I knew to have spent an equal amount of his time studying her Majesty in the kind of detail required to make such a relevant judgement as was required of him.

F-for your v-v-v-visual delec—tation, the turn resumed from the stage, producing from the folds of his velvet cloak and then proceeding to wield his supposedly confidence-inspiring wooden wand, I sh-sh-shall now r-risk a ch—charge of h-h-h-high t-treason b-b-by m-making her m-majesty d-d-d-disappear. Ab—ab-b-aracadabara!

A cheap sulphur flare, no doubt rigged within the central footlight, was suddenly to obfuscate our eyeline. Sparked at Scambiare's command and dealt in conjunction with a full lighting blackout, a simple effect designed to flash blind the audience, giving Ena the time required to leave her paint and plaster throne and to scamper for the wings, a scant second before the lights were to come back up. However, the collective 'Wooo', delivered by the more easily deceived of the audience's membership, quickly gave way to a rising chuckle, emanating from those seated on the far left-hand side of the auditorium, those who, in that brief moment and from that most in fortuitous of angles, had been witness to that which nobody else present had been in a position to see: that being the sight of poor Ena, off stage, attempting to secrete herself within a wicker laundry basket, manned by a pair of ponytailed, box hatted Chinese. The hands then proceeded to wheel the basket into the centre of the stage, whilst The Great Scambiare affected a pantomime of a Jolly Jack Tar, searching the four cardinal points for sign of the missing monarch.

Am I to presume that she has somehow managed to transmute herself to within the laundry basket? Asked the stylist, to which comment I recall raising a concerned eyebrow in his direction.

On the stage, the illusionist suddenly seemed to 'notice' the basket, and, stepping melodramatically towards it, unhasped the buckles that 'appeared' to be holding its lid closed and threw it open, on which cue, the Queen was seen to rise from within, curtsy, and then to cartwheel off stage to thunderous applause.

Oh, Bravo! Said the stylist in the seat next to mine. Bravo!

I was to make a third visit to Wilton's the very next day. This time, however, I had sat alone, as I had done on my original visit, though I had arrived in the company of two others and would leave with a third in tow.

The stuttering Scambiare's act proceeded as usual, right up until the point where the illusionist unhasped the basket, whereupon, in the place of his assistant, Ena, he was to discover the bodies of the two Chinese, their throats slit from ear to ear. The lady, it would seem, had vanished one final time, never to be heard from again. The Great Scambiare: in reality, Norman Crabtree of East Dulwich, grief-stricken at the disappearance of his wife, would never work again.

These events were to follow on from my introduction to a shadowy figure whom I had oftentimes observed around the corridors of Buckingham Palace during my early days on the payroll, though up until that point, had never before encountered in the flesh. I wish to all that is holy that that eventual encounter could have been avoided altogether.

It had been the evening before I had purchased that particular copy of The Times, and I had been called to Her Majesty's rooms by her maid, who had been quite distressed at having been unable to rouse the sovereign in order to deliver her supper.

And you are quite certain, Dr Jenner? Said the nameless Mandarin from across the bed, the first words that he had spoken to me following his arrival some eight minutes earlier, in the wake of my having sent a footman to deliver a message to the most senior member of the household staff.

The lack of a heartbeat does rather tend to give it away, I replied, perhaps a trifle tartly, unused as I was at that time to having my professional diagnoses questioned in this way. Removing my stethoscope from where it hung around my neck, I passed it across the patient towards the man known throughout the palace simply as 'The Secretary'. However, he was to ignore both my implied offer and my trite reply and simply continue to stare down at the body that lay in the bed between us, his protuberant brow deep in-furrow, and therefore, I was moved to presume that the cogs of his mind were as deeply troubled as my own.

And you have kept this information to yourself? He eventually asked me, flipping open his fob as he turned and walked towards the window that looked down upon the gardens below.

As is a requirement of my employ, I replied, having already given him a blow-by-blow account of all that had occurred since I had dismissed the maid with a platitude, as protocol dictated, and set about making my initial examination.

How much do we trust this maid? He had asked, his back resolutely towards me.

Eliza Babbleforth has been with the family for quite some time, I explained in the girl's defence. She knows the rules pertaining to below-stair gossip; they all do. However, word of this kind will undoubtedly spread as soon as the family become aware.

"The family are not to become aware. The Secretary warned, in a tone that I acknowledged to be threatening. The Queen is merely 'resting', he told me, and on no account is she to be disturbed. Is that clear, Dr. Jenner?"

But, sir, I began, only to be cut dead mid-flow.

"Is that clear, Dr. Jenner?"

Perfectly, I said, my rising gander held in check.

Excellent, he remarked, finally turning back to face me, a rather unnerving smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he assured himself of my cooperation. As a precaution, until this matter is resolved, he added, this room is to remain locked, 'on her doctor's order'. Now, he said, closing and then pocketing his watch as he moved back towards the centre of the room, I have a meeting with the Prime Minister. I suggest that you and I reconvene in my office at nine o'clock sharp tomorrow morning. Good evening to you, Dr. Jenner.

I would like to make it clear to you that I was not so naïve; even then, as to have presumed that the fate that was to befall Miss Babbelforth later that same evening had been anything but the work of the Crown Agency, and intended; not so much as a tidying up of loose ends, but as a warning to myself as to the likely consequences should I choose not to comply with my given instructions. I had heard many a rumour over the past twelve months or so concerning this mysterious figure's professional remit and of the numerous unsolved disappearances and suspicious suicides of low-ranking civil servants and members of the Royal Household who, it would appear, had inadvertently made the mistake of crossing his path. It was, therefore, with a heavy heart that I descended the back stairs of the Palace that following morning, the newspaper that I had recently purchased from a street vendor in Piccadilly wedged under my arm, and made my way down to the 'Ring': the ovaline basement of the Palace, and the location of the various offices, staff dormitories, and storerooms, essential to the running of the building above.

Enter, was the barked command that I received to my light rapping upon the door marked 'Secretary', and so enter I did, with a dread sense that from that moment forth, the life that I had previously known was forever lost to me and that I had embarked upon an entirely new path, one that has never suited my nature, based as it has been, on lies, subterfuge, and misdirection.

Ah, Dr Jenner, I'm so pleased that you could make it. Close the door if you would and take a seat.

I will stand if it's all the same to you, I told him, pulling the door behind me. It was but a minor act of defiance, though one with which I hoped to convey to him the fact that, while I understood that I was in no position to defy him, I would not tolerate being treated in a fashion generally reserved for the lower orders. My protest, however pathetic as it was in hindsight, went entirely unremarked upon.

The Queen is dead, he said instead, with a nonchalance that I was to find quite offensive. A fact, he went on, known only to those of us in this room and to Lord Palmerston himself. It is the Prime Minister's express wish, he went on, fixing me with a stare that I believed could have melted stone, that this remains the case. I trust that we are on the same page, Dr. Jenner?

We are, sir, I replied, making sure to avoid his unnatural gaze.

The Prime Minister feels that it would be detrimental to the morale of the people of this great nation if they were to lose their monarch so soon after the death of her husband, Prince Albert. In this, he and I are in agreement. We live in uncertain times, Dr. Jenner, as I am sure you will attest. What is needed more than anything at this moment is stability of leadership.

If I may, I bravely intruded, and was quite surprised to find him acquiescing to my interruption, but as you said yourself only a moment ago, the Queen is dead. We cannot continue to keep her body locked in her room whilst we pretend that the worst has not occurred.

And we have no intention of doing so, he informed me calmly yet firmly before continuing: such a plan, doctor, is not without its precedent. As you will no doubt be aware, Victoria inherited the crown from her uncle, King William, who sadly died heirless in 1837. There were those at the time who did not believe a girl of a mere eighteen years capable of commanding an empire of such size and importance, and so a plan was concocted to replace the deceased monarch with his doppelganger.

"His doppelganger?" I inquired, not having been familiar with the term, though recognising it for its obvious Germanic root.

His double, The Secretary explained. It is common practice for kings, queens, and indeed presidents and prime ministers, to engage the services of a lookalike for the purposes of security. By the time of the King's passing, however, his double was in no better health than he himself, and so the plan had had to be abandoned, and he was, nonetheless, succeeded by his niece.

And are we saying, I blundered forward, that you have a double in line to replace Her Majesty?

No, the Secretary said, sadly, Victoria's double passed away a month before the prince consort. However, my people have been scouting for a replacement, and we believe that we have found a likely candidate. As the royal physician, someone who is used to examining Her Majesty, the task of verifying my agent's discovery must now fall to you.

Before I could protest, he produced from the bureau in front of him a slip of paper with, written upon it, a time and a location. The second of these two details, of course, being the Whitechapel music hall, to which I have previously referred.

'Do no harm' is the most important of the guiding principles of Hippocrates Law: an oath that all medical practitioners swear to uphold before taking up practice. Although I could not be held personally responsible for the deaths of these people, I had, to my mind, been unwittingly complicit in the demise of all three. In the case of Miss Babbleforth, it could not be said otherwise that it had been yours truly who had named her, when in retrospect I could and probably should have feigned ignorance as to her identity. As for the gruesome and gratuitous murders of the two Chinese stagehands, although I had accompanied agents Q and P to the music hall that night, fully conversant with The Secretary's plan to abduct Mrs. Crabtree, mid-performance, I had not been party to this particular detail and had only become aware upon reading the following day's reportage.

Nevertheless, whether or not the guilt that I had felt for my actions and indeed inactions up until that point in the story was misplaced, there was to be a fourth casualty before the plot was sealed, one that; in all honesty, I could have predicted and therefore saved if it had not been for my cowardice and my misguided belief that my own life held more value than that of a mere parlour mesmerist.

Harrington Hetherington, the Hampstead and Highgate Hypnotist, had been waiting for us upon our return to the palace. On The Secretary's instruction, I had telegraphed him earlier in the day to request his help with an experiment that I was conducting, vis-à-vis the Queen's security. Intrigued, and no doubt flattered in equal measure to have been asked to contribute to such a project, he had responded immediately and had been collected by one of The Secretary's agents whilst I had been overseeing the kidnapping of Mrs. Crabtree.

As ordered, I had received Mr Hetherington from the waiting room just inside the rear service entrance, and had led him down to the 'theatre': the venue in the bowels of the palace where surgery is conducted; as required, on members of the royal family. Agents P and Q had secured poor Ena to a chair, positioned in the centre of the room, still wearing her facsimile of the monarch's attire. A gag had been placed in her mouth, and she had been left alone in the dark, completely unaware of where she was or, indeed, that which was to befall her. The sight, which was to greet the hypnotist as I lit the gas lamps, would have sent a chill down the spine of any patriotic Englishman to have borne witness to such a perverse and unpardonable spectacle, and we two were to prove no exception. It was to take me a few moments to convince the hypnotist that Mrs Crabtree was, in fact, a trained agent, whose specific task it was to double for the Queen during potentially life-threatening situations, and that she had been captured and compromised by enemy agents, which was why, when the gag was removed, she would claim to be a magician's assistant from South London, being held against her will. His task, I then explained to him; if he were to agree to undertake it, would be to hypnotise the subject into once more believing that she was, in fact, the Queen of England. A script had been prepared to help override the subject's own identity and to instil that of Victoria's, complete with memories of her children, her husband, and various other memorable aspects of her life.

Mrs Crabtree had resisted the process at first, but Mr Hetherington had been nothing if not the very model of patient professionalism, and as he finally clicked his fingers, ninety minutes later, she had awoken in the unshakable belief that she was, and always had been, Queen Victoria.

Mr Hetherington was generously recompensed for both his time and his expertise, and a Hansom hailed to return him to his abode, where, according to the third and final newspaper of the collection before you, The Islington Gazette, dated the 7th of February 1862, he was found hanged in his drawing room the very next day, with a note on the table beside him and no suspicion of foul play.

All of this left but one final problem. Whilst it was perfectly likely that the former Mrs Crabtree would pass visual muster in her new role, once her slight weight loss had been explained away as the result of a recent illness, neither her subjects nor her family were likely to miss her newly acquired rookery accent. It was The Secretary's suggestion that an elocution teacher be appointed ahead of the new queen's unveiling, but in order to spare the tragic loss of another innocent life, I was to intervene with a plan of my own.

Your Majesty has had a cerebrovascular accident, I told her, whilst standing beside her bed on the morning of the eighth; four days after I had last found myself in the same position, in common parlance, I revealed to her flummoxed form, you have suffered a 'stroke'.

An' tha's why me voice's gone orl sarf'a th' river?

Regrettably so, ma'am, I asserted, but it could have been much worse. I have read of patients, I gently pointed out, who, following a similar misfortune as your own, awoke to find themselves fluent in French or even Swahili, with not a word of the Queen's English to be spoken nor understood. As it stands, ma'am, it will be a simple matter of your 'affecting an accent' until it once more becomes second nature to you.

A naxen'? She queried, as if the term were foreign to her.

Yes, ma'am, an accent. Might I suggest that you spend a little time around the royal princesses before re-joining the world? I feel sure that you will pick it up quite quickly.

I was to spend many more years as Physician-In-Ordinary to the Royal Household, and, as you will be aware if you have been following my career in my absence, I have achieved much in the way of progress and notoriety in my chosen field of endeavour. However, the memory of this particular episode has haunted me ever since and troubles me even more now that my end is nigh. My choice to distance myself from my nearest and dearest was not an easy one to make. Ever since that day when I was called down to The Secretary's office, I have been aware that my movements have been dogged. Two close friends of mine 'disappeared' in the months following, never to be seen or heard from again: the stylist Marmaduke Fotherinsquire and my assistant at the palace, Peregrine Pommoroy; their only crimes, it seemed: meeting with yours truly in a purely social capacity. Therefore, as difficult as it was to walk away from my attachments, I did so, knowing that all would be safe without me.

I have been retired these nine years, living quietly in the countryside, where, although I am still watched, I believe; due to my ailing health, I am considered less of a potential threat to imperial security. By the time you receive this, I shall be gone, this letter having been delivered posthumously by my trusted solicitor. I can only apologise for not contacting you sooner, dear brother, but I hope now that you will understand my reasoning.

Yours faithfully,

Will.

19th of November,1895, the Palace of Westminster, London. (R1)

A Mr. Periwinkle to see you, sir.

Ah! Aubrey, dear fellow; good to see you; come in, come in; do.

Mr Secwetawy.

I trust you have good news for me, Aubrey?

I believe so, sir; yes, said the lawyer, parking himself in the seat opposite and placing a parcel on the desk between them. The good doctor passed away this morning. He left me this to deliver to his bwother in Edinbuwa, following his death. As you will see, as per your standing instwuctions, the seal has not been tampered with, but owing to the fact that I was charged with delivewing it by hand, I pwesume it to be the papers to which you alluded.

Excellent, said The Secretary, who then opened his desk drawer and retrieved a cheque, that