“How will that letter make them paint the museum?” asked Una.
“Human nature,” replied Emily. “You wait. It’ll happen.”
She put the letter back in the envelope and sealed it. Twenty minutes later it was in the hands of the U.S. Post Office. The following morning it was opened by the museum director.
“Hmmmm.” He handed it back to his secretary. “Check it out with the British Embassy. You never know, might just be right.”
By five that evening, it was collected, along with other refuse, by the museum garbage man.
Lui Ho cleared his throat and spat noisily, as the thick steam from the Plaza showers gushed into the Tse Eih Aei headquarters.
“Learn to play the piano,” he said, through the fog. “It is written here, in the book.”
His spies, relaxing naked or loincloth-clad in their bunks, tried to look wise, and prepared themselves for the inevitable lecture.
“Our beloved Mao writes that, in playing the piano, all ten fingers are in motion; it won’t do to move some fingers only, and not others.”
”But if all ten fingers press down at once, there is no melody. To produce good music, the ten fingers should move rhythmically and in co-ordination.” Lui Ho paused. On his bunk, Fat Choy counted his fingers. He could find only eight, and two thumbs. He suddenly felt sorry for himself. Mao Tse-tung was NEVER wrong. Therefore he, Fat Choy, must be deformed.
“It means that we fingers must work in rhythm,” continued Lui Ho. He peered at Sam Ling, whose head was contained in a turban-like bandage. “Two of our fingers were not working rhythmically today, were they? Wounded? Wounded? How does one get oneself wounded in an ice cream barrow?”
“I was wounded, almost trepanned, by a certain colleague who forgot which was the dummy barrel, and tried to spoon ten cents’ worth of my head into a cornet,” protested Sam Ling.
“But, Comrade Leader, I made a day’s profit of nine dollars, fifty-three cents,” said Chou-Tan, proudly.
“Good,” replied Lui Ho. “Dollars are always useful. And now . . . play back the recording of the nanny-ladies’ meeting.”
The spies listened as the tapes spun through the machine. Lui Ho’s frown wrinkled back on to his scalp.
“Those strange noises are smackings, and children crying,” explained Sam Ling. “And one must remember to ignore the normal domestic conversation. You will readily see that these nanny-ladies lack any form of sophistication in the art of intrigue.”
“Will their plan work?” asked Pi Wun Tun. He hoped that no one would suddenly suggest they should all stand to salute Chairman Mao’s portraits, as the soft voices of the nannies and the slapping noises had given him an erection.
Sam Ling shook his head in silent reply.
“Then,” said Lui Ho. “Tonight we will mount our portable short-range rocket launcher in the bushes of Central Park. We will fire an explosive missile into the museum, in the appropriate gallery, thus necessitating redecoration of that part.”
“Not only redecoration, Comrade Leader, but certain rebuilding. And we cannot wait that long.” Sam Ling’s fingers wound themselves automatically as he went on. “I believe that, earlier, you had ideas which could be put into excellent use at this time.”
Lui Ho peered at him from under his straight black eyebrows. “Yes?”
“You suggested, with your usual luminosity, Comrade Leader, that we should assist the nanny-ladies. You said we should help them, but remain anonymously in the background. They can be helped in many ways.”
“As you say,” grunted Lui Ho. “I am indeed brilliant, but cursed by such a poor memory. No doubt it could be traced to some inherited imperialistic weakness that will, no doubt, be bred out of future generations.”
“A minor fault, Comrade Leader,” said Sam Ling, his fingers relaxing. “Now, here’s what you probably suggested . . .”
Two full days passed before there were any developments in the nannies’ plans. Nothing seemed to be happening. They waited anxiously. Then, on the third morning, an excited Emily arrived at the park bench. She was puffing and out of breath. Her spiky hair stood out around her cap, and her pince-nez were steamed up.
“It worked!” she gasped, happily. “I told you it would work, I’ve just come from the museum, and they’ve already started to do something. I saw men carrying lots of steel tubing, and tins of paint and things along the corridors.”
Hettie looked at her in disbelief. “Away with you,” she said.
“Absolutely honestly,” Emily protested. “I swear it. They’re going to redecorate that hall.”
“Then the museum director must be a wee bit daft,” said the Scots nanny. “That letter didnae sound at all as though it was written by Her Majesty.”
She noticed Emily’s hurt look, and she reached out and patted her arm. “There, we’re sorry we didnae completely believe in you. But we’re VERY pleased to hear your news. We’re sure the 25th Earl would be delighted.”
Una smiled at Emily. “People always believe the things they want to believe. The museum man would probably like to be visited by a Crown Prince, THAT'S why he believed the letter.”
“Not at all,” insisted Emily. “It was because I wrote that letter exactly how I thought Her Majesty would write it. I just imagined myself to be the queen, and a boy’s mother, and wrote quite naturally.”
“Right, ma bonnies,” said Hettie. “Let’s not waste any more time. It’s enough that Nanny Emily’s idea came off. Now we can get down to the real work. Let’s away to the museum first, and see what’s going on there. Una, it’s your turn to look after the bairns while we go in.”
The nannies stood at the entrance to the hall and watched the men pull a heavy, yellow canvas sheet over the fossilized brontosaurus.
“There,” said Emily. “I told you. It’s just as I said it would be. We’ll watch for a few minutes.”
Hettie looked round the hall to familiarize herself with the positioning of the scaffolding.
The hall attendant strolled over to the group.
“Sorry, ladies. You can’t come in now. We’ve got some decorations to restore.”
A sly look came over Emily’s face. “Are you expecting visitors?” she asked.
“Expecting them?” The man scowled. “Lady, we’ve just had them. Nearly cost me my job. Some nut squirted Commie peace slogans on the ceiling.”
“Paint?” queried Emily.
The man nodded, and pointed. There were several large blotches on the high roof.
“And that ain’t all,” he growled. “You should read what he wrote on the walls about the president . . .” He turned to show them, then changed his mind. “Guess you’d better go now, ladies. We got work to do. Why not come back in a week’s time? You’ll be able to see the old bront, then.” He winked at Emily. “He ain’t going anywhere.”
Emily’s face was angry. She turned towards Susanne. The young nanny shook her head, violently. “It wathn’t me, truly,” she whispered, hurriedly. “It’th jutht a horrid cointhidence.”
“Robert Bruce, General Gordon, Flora Macdonald,” said Hettie, when they had joined Una in the park again. “And maybe the MacPhish of Kingussie.”
“Who?” asked Melissa.
“Sorry,” said Hettie. “We were just thinking of people we’d like to have with us on a raid like this.”
“I’ve heard of most of them,” said Susanne. “But who’s the MacPhish of whatever-it-was?”
“A relation,” said Hettie. She didn’t explain that it was her grandfather, a red-bearded giant of a drunkard who needed a whole lorry-load of Glasgow policemen to get him out of the Kingussie Street Arms any night of the week.
Susanne thought of the statue outside the museum. “I’d like to have Theodore Roosevelt with uth. He wath brave, and audathious.”
“Not so audacious as you, expecting him to help you rob his own memorial,” laughed Una.
“The dear, late king was always my hero,” said Emily, nostalgically. “He’d have taken a dinosaur to save England. I can picture him doing it just like the scene on the back of a gold sovereign.”
“King George, a saint! How perfectly apt,” said Hettie. “And how romantic. He was a REAL gentleman.”
“Breeding, my dear,” said Emily, brushing down the front of her uniform, then straightening the cushions in her baby carriage.
“Now for some careful planning. We’ve got to handle this like a military operation,” said Hettie. She pictured herself, a clan leader, kilt-clad and armed with a heavy claymore, with her followers on the eve of Culloden. “Over the top we’ll go. Trumpets sounding the charge. Horses’ hooves thundering. Banners waving in the breeze. Wi’ the clans hovering their war cries. That’s how it’ll be.”
The four nannies looked at her in amazement. “Well, er, not quite like that,” Hettie corrected herself. “We’ll be most lady-like, and extremely discreet.”
“D’you think we should try thmuggling the bones out under our thkirts?” asked Susanne. “I once heard of a shoplifter who dressed herself as an expectant lady and filled a thpecial pair of flannel knickers with radio thets. She’d have got away with it, too, but one of them got thwitched on, and the thtore detective heard her giving out a weather forecast.”
“Humph,” said Emily. “We’re not shoplifters. And I’ve not wasted my time during the last two days. I’ve already thought of a way of getting the bones out of the museum. I’ve found a good escape route. I started working on the idea, knowing that my letter was going to make the museum paint that hall.”
“But the man in the hall thaid ...” began Susanne. “Stuff and nonsense,” said Emily. “Perhaps they ARE painting the hall because someone wrote something stupid on the walls. But I know they’d have done it, anyway. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the museum director found he couldn’t get permission to decorate the hall for his royal visitor, so he went out and wrote the rude slogans himself, in order to justify the work.”
“Quaite,” said Una’s exaggerately-refined North London voice. She glanced at her watch “My goodness, it’s four fifteen.”
Hettie checked her own timepiece. “We’ll have to hurry, or we’ll miss tea-time. Let’s go and have it at the Tavern. And we’ll talk more about the plan there.” She turned to Emily and whispered, quietly. “Remember, this is our responsibility, Nanny Emily. Partly your plan . . . but our full responsibility. We are still the senior nurse when it comes to making final decisions. Now, kindly explain your plan to us.”
Emily nodded.
They parked the perambulators in the tree-shaded open-air cafe, and sat at a nearby table.
“Tea, everybody?” asked Hettie, as a waitress neared them. “Not, of course, that we’ll get real tea, anyway. Teabag tea, ugh! I hate to think what would have happened if you’d served tea-bag tea to H.R.H. at a Royal Garden Party.”
“Coke for me, please,” said Susanne.
“Nonsense, girl. Tea ... or perhaps, as a treat, lemon-tea.”
“I want a sixty-foot length of rope,” confided Emily, her mind running through the equipment they would be needing.
“Sure, lady,” said the waitress, her face bland. “How do you British like it? Grilled, poached, or our speciality, rope suzette?”
Emily stared at the slim girl in her blue nylon dress. “Just tea, thank you,” she said, grandly. She waited until the girl had left them, then she turned to the others. “Providing Nanny Hettie agrees, then I’d like you all to get the night after tomorrow off. Meanwhile, here’s a list of the things that I . . . er, Nanny Hettie and I, want you to get. Melissa, you buy the rope. Sixty feet of mountaineering stuff. Try a sports equipment emporium. Susanne, you get two large adjustable wrenches and two big screwdrivers. And some grocer’s sacks and bags. Una, just lanterns, and torches. Four of them. And get spare batteries and bulbs. And Hettie, you and I will buy a lorry.”
“Lorry?” exploded Hettie. “Gracious me, and why would we be needing a lorry?”
“To carry the bones, of course,” smiled Emily. “And I shall drive.”
“You can drive a lorry, Nanny Emily?” Susanne looked at the old lady with surprise.
“I’ll have you know, my girl, I drove a caterpillar tractor during the war, on Lord Bramwell’s estate. I was responsible for ploughing five acres.”
“We heard about that,” said Hettie. “At the Land Army Club they said it was the longest furrow ever ploughed. Five acres it may have been, but it was in one straight line. You nearly cut off Devon and Cornwall. One furrow, from Exeter to Barnstaple. They had no electric power in the West Country for a week.”
“The throttle jammed,” Emily pouted. “I had to wait until the fuel ran out. Anyhow, I’ve borrowed a book about driving from the library, and tonight I’m going to read it. I’m quite sure that if a mere lorry driver can drive a lorry, so can I.”
“Aye, maybe,” said Hettie, doubtfully. She looked at her watch, then at the three younger nannies. “Time we were away. Now dinnae forget the things we told you about.”
Emily’s head wagged so vigorously in agreement that her pince-nez rattled. “Yes, and bring them round to my flat in the morning. You’d better bring some working clothes and gloves, too. It’s going to be a dusty job.”
Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack. Sam Ling peered down over the edge of his bunk, and tried to make out who was playing table-tennis in the evening steam-fog of the Tse Eih Aei headquarters.
“Van in,” said Fat Choy’s voice. “Where’s the ball?”
“In the comer,” replied Pi Wun Tun. “You’ll have to get it.”
Fat Choy groaned, and climbed out of his bunk.
“You two are the laziest sportsmen I’ve ever met,” Sam Ling muttered. “I’ve never before seen anyone playing Ping-Pong lying down.”
“It’s more relaxing,” grunted Pi Wun Tun. “And more skilful. One needs complete concentration to maintain accuracy from a prone position.” “Lotus-eaters,” said Sam Ling.
The fog swirled as the lift descended into the room, and Lui Ho stepped out. He wafted the mist away from him, flapping his hands. “Is everybody here?” he called.
“All except Nicky Po,” answered Sam Ling, swinging his legs over the side of his bunk and dropping to the ground. “He’s fishing again.”
Lui Ho’s eyes glazed. He ran a thin tongue over his lips. “Fish Manchu,” he whispered. “Lobster on a perfumed bed of snow-bleached rice. Delicate Pacific squid broiled in its own exotic ink.” The spies watched him with sad faces. “Thin slivers of pink shark meat balanced on silver skewers, and roasting over charcoal ...” Lui Ho sighed deeply. “Nicky Po is one true comrade who makes exquisite efforts to fully occupy his time and enhance our deprived diet.” Lui Ho made a visible effort to concentrate on Sam Ling’s report. “So, Second in Command to myself, what did you learn today about those female Capitalist lackeys?”