BUST UP!

Hello, and welcome to December's edition of 'The Autolycan'.  This one starts with a headline in The Independent which my son sent me some time ago.  I was much taken by it, but couldn't immediately think of a suitable back story.  You may think I still haven't of course, but I hope not and that you will enjoy and share the story.  And a Merry Christmas!

BUST UP!

Town builds statue to local hero – and takes 40 years to notice it's the wrong man

The Independent

I've never been accused of having brain cells to spare, but then you don't need many to tell when Shreeves disapproves. On that particular morning he raised not merely one but both eyebrows when he brought my tea, a sure sign that I was in for Arctic levels of froideur and all the warm bonhomie of a shoal of peckish barracuda. I forced what I hoped might be taken as a smile.

'What ho, Shreeves!'

'Good morning, sir' he replied carelessly, and even in that first moment I could detect an abundant and copious absence of mateyness.

'Shall I run your bath, sir?' he enquired in tones which suggested he'd like to fill it with boiling oil, or whatever it was that fellows stuck inside castles used to pour on other fellows stuck outside.

Two or three gulps of the brown restorative later I realised he was eyeing me in the manner of all those barracuda homing in on a particularly appetising anchovy.

'I did not find the likeness flattering, sir' he pronounced 'and had I been granted the opportunity duty would have compelled me to advise against the choice of that tie with the blue worsted.'

I mean to say! I thought the roguish glint in the Schuster eye lent the portrait a kind of raffish charm, but 'duty would have compelled me' is pretty much Shreeves' top level of outrage. Anything higher than that and he would simply blow up and a man would have to come round to mend him.

The funereal mood turned yet more wretchedly morose when the letters arrived. I swear Shreeves had deliberately placed the one in Great Aunt Elspeth's unmistakeably strident hand on the top. If only Napoleon had had GAE up his sleeve at Waterloo Shreeves would now be wafting in on a wave of garlic with one of those tiny cups of disgusting coffee that are all the rage at those pavement cafés they go in for. Which might in fact have been preferable to the relish with which he presented the poisonous f and b's letter. I opened with a sense of foreboding so deep that it approached fiveboding. It concerned my venomous ward Archie who had been staying with his doting step grandmother – the aforesaid GAE – in Stygian gloom in that decaying wreck of hers in Sussex. How this most striking of blots on childhood had made it this far in life beats me, but a tenth birthday for the little blister was apparently looming and GAE had decreed that I should present myself in joyous raiment for the ghastly obsequies. There was to be no escape from her bleak command that I should kick up the Schuster heels at this desolate merrymaking.

When I brokenly relayed the news to Shreeves he showed rather less sympathy towards me than that Dracula bounder did when sinking a fang or two into some comely neck.

'It will afford you the opportunity, sir, to renew your acquaintance with Miss Alicia' he exulted. I'd never previously detected anything so close to euphoria in those sonorous tones of his.

Alicia was Archie's older but equally repellent sister and I had tried for years to treat her with a kind of rapturous disdain This did nothing to stop the pestilence setting her cap at me with grizzly predictions about the sunny idyll which awaited me if only I allowed my true feelings to show. I've had unpaid and hungry creditors who were a lot less tenacious.

My normally jaunty and jolly manner was bereft of all jaunt and joll as Shreeves rattled us cheerily down to Sussex in the old jalopy, and I was becoming increasingly envious of that pilgrim cove who kicked up such a childish fuss about a little thing like sinking up to the ears in his Slough of Despond.

GAE welcomed me with an icy snarl, which grew only colder and fiercer once I had gritted the lips sufficiently to bestow the required peck on the antediluvian cheek. I realised with horror that soothing words of comfort were required for the recent departure of the universally detested Great Uncle Wilfred, the only decent thing that gruesome old fossil had ever done. The only person ever to bask in the warm glow of Great Uncle W's esteem was, unaccountably, that prize affliction, Archie.

Normally, Shreeves would hove reassuringly into view at a time like this, dispensing general solace to soothe a troubled spirit and a nudge in the general direction of le mot juste to lob at the old firedrake, but he was nowhere to be seen.

At this juncture my detestable ward rushed up and bit me on the right shin, occasioning such a rare display of approval from the Medusa like great aunt that the left shin instantly met a similar fate. In what passed for life, Great Uncle W had forbidden all chastisement whatsoever of Archie and clearly didn't regard death as any reason to mend his ways. GAE and Alicia merely simpered, whereupon arch-fiend Archie pressed home his advantage with a couple of well aimed kicks to the ankles.

This was actually going slightly better than I had expected, but things took a turn for the worse when Alicia drew me to one side under the pretext of saving me from further attack.

'Lambkin! Oh, my lambkin!' she blushed. I mean, dash it, how's a fellow meant to handle a girl who blithers on mawkishly like this?

'What ho,' I replied, with probably less list than I had ever previously endowed the expression. I braced myself for the usual nonsense about overflowing cornucopias, milk and honey, wedding bells and so on. I wasn't disappointed. Well, I was, but you know what I mean.

Then, when I was at my lowest and feeblest, this daughter of Jezebel sprung it on me.

'We had the reading of Great Uncle's will yesterday' she said 'and Archie is to inherit the entire estate on his 50^th birthday. But his guardian must be persuaded that he has shown proper respect to the poisonous old devil throughout his life.'

My crest fell heavily and lay bruised at my feet.

'Great Aunt Elspeth thinks that you should erect a bust to that awful man in the boy's name, and that this will show the necessary respect. If you do I need hardly say that I shall never speak to you again.'

My crest immediately perked up at this as I contemplated the glittering prize to be had from putting up this blessed bust – even though I would then be complicit in my repulsive ward inheriting a fortune. But then I furrowed the brow pretty mercilessly and taxed the protesting grey matter within with questions about what would happen if I refused. GAE and Archie would badger me at every turn, the grey matter intoned. What's more, it confided, I would then be Alicia's hero and she would swoon at the very sight of me. Neither the grey matter nor I had the courage to think what might happen after that.

A Schuster has his pride, and I forebore from putting the dilemma to Shreeves for fully ten minutes. Eventually I had no option. He listened intently, occasionally offering insights such as 'most distressing' or 'a very pretty conundrum, sir.' Then the dreaded 'I fear no efficacious solution readily presents itself, sir.'

I summoned as much hauteur as the circs allowed.

''Most distressing' cuts no ice with me, Shreeves. I expect suggestions in the morning.' I had to exact some retribution for his dismissive remarks about the portrait and can be wounding at need.

I stared at him coolly the next day when he shimmied in with tea.

'Well?'

His smile, I felt, was supercilious.

'I judge that a little subterfuge on your part might satisfactorily resolve the difficulty, sir. But the proposition must be implemented in full. I fear that a partial execution would not achieve the required eventuality'

I was all ears.

'Well, say on, Shreeves!'

'I wonder, sir, if you might commission plans for two busts, one of the recently deceased gentleman, and another of a deceased thief and vagabond of somewhat similar mien. I believe that getting your great aunt to approve the plans for the bust of your great uncle would cause little difficulty. Despite his youth I think it vital that your ward should also signify his approval of the plans.'

I nodded. 'But......'

It is imperative, sir, that the sculptor whom you commission then experiences some delay

in creating the work. Perhaps it would be best if his tormented soul struggled doggedly with certain aesthetic concerns.'

'Why so, Shreeves?'

'I fear that your great aunt's memory is failing, sir. I am inclined to believe that a delay of at most a year or so while the sculptor wrestles with his artistic difficulties would be sufficient for your great aunt to be uncertain about the accuracy of the likeness. I further judge that Master Archibald is of an age where he finds the accuracy or otherwise of the likeness immaterial.'

'And then......?'

'You might then instruct the sculptor to proceed with the likeness of the rogue and vagabond, sir, which should then be publicly displayed. This should be sufficient for Miss Alicia to abandon that interest in you which I believe to be unwelcome.'

'That's all well and good' I began, but that means that that frightful pill Archie will inherit a fortune. Or have you forgotten that bit?'

Pointed, I thought.

'I have a suggestion which I believe might pre-empt that outcome, sir.'

'Shreeves?'

'I propose, sir, the addition of a time capsule to the bust, to be opened at a public ceremony forty years from now on the day Master Archibald expects to inherit his fortune. I am of the view that the more people who are present at this ceremony, the better.'

I couldn't for the life of me see what the great manipulator was driving at, and perhaps unwisely said so.

'The time capsule, should contain letters of unimpeachable authority from the family's solicitors, stating that the likeness is not of your great uncle, but instead of a rogue and vagabond. The approvals from your great aunt and in particular from your ward should also be evident. Under the terms of your great uncle's will it will then be impossible for Master Archibald to inherit given such clear evidence of his disrespect.'

'Masterly, Shreeves! So what happens to the estate?'

'I have taken the liberty, sir, of examining the will in some detail and have discovered that should Master Archibald fail to inherit the entire estate is to be settled on his guardian.'

'You mean.......you mean.......me?'

'Exactly as you say, sir. You.'

'But......'

'I have one further suggestion to make, sir, and that is that you should also deposit your recent portrait in the time capsule, with a postcard addressed to Master Archibald. It might perhaps read 'Presented by Mr Bertram Schuster in compensation for the loss of your inheritance.' I consider that a note added in your own hand reading 'sorry it's not a good likeness' might be suitably cutting in its ambiguity, whilst exacting a measure of revenge.'

I'm not sure if I gibbered before I jabbered or if it was the other way round. An ambitious and wholly ill-advised attempt at a yammer failed utterly.

'Shr...Shreeves....' I stammered incoherently, 'you're a marvel.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'Pity we've got to wait for revenge though for... what... erm... well, about...'

'Forty years, sir.'

'Is it, by jove? Well, a dashed long time....'

'Indeed, but I have often heard it said that revenge is a dish best eaten cold. Will that be all, sir?'

ANAGRAM CORNER

MR PRESIDENT ELECT

LECTERN DISTEMPER!