'Humph,' said the Pirate Captain. 'You're honestly trying to tell me this Marx fellow has a beard to rival mine? You're sure it wasn't just the bad light in there? Now we're outside, take a proper look at it. Do you see the way the daylight brings out the russet hues around the edges?'

'No, you're right, it's not quite the same. I feel Dr Marx's beard is perhaps that little bit more voluminous.'

The Pirate Captain snorted indignantly. 'I find that a little difficult to believe.'

'Sorry,' said Engels. 'I didn't mean to offend.'

There was an awkward silence. A hansom cab clattered by. Somewhere, a rat squeaked.

'Ooohh . . . rain,' said the Pirate Captain after a few moments. He rolled his eyes to emphasise the point.

'Wait a moment!' exclaimed Engels. 'Are you the pirate captain who was all over the newspapers the other day? It mentioned that he rolled his eyes "like the furies of h.e.l.l were snapping at his heels".'

'Yes, that's me. But you know the newspapers, they exaggerate such a lot. Really I only decapitated five sailors with that cutla.s.s stroke.'

Engels paused, looked furtively about and then pulled a leaflet from his pocket. He pressed it into the Captain's hand. 'Dr Marx is giving a talk tonight. I'd very much like you to come along. Listen, Pirate Captain, I may have . . . a business proposition for you.'

And with that, and a brisk nod of his head, Engels disappeared down the alleyway.

The Pirate Captain found the rest of the pirates shopping in Harrods. They were having a heated conversation with an exasperated clerk.

'What about a puppy, but instead of a puppy's head, with the head of an alligator?' said the albino pirate.

'No. We've not got that,' said the clerk.

'How about a zombie eagle?'

'No. We've not got that either.'

The pirates saw their captain and waved.

'This is rubbish, Pirate Captain,' said the pirate in green. 'It says on the door that Harrods sells anything, but so far they haven't had a single item we've asked for.'

'Just buy a packet of crisps so we get a Harrods bag,' said the Pirate Captain sensibly, 'and then we'll grab a coffee and you can hear the harrowing tale of mistaken ident.i.ty and police brutality I have to tell. Though I should warn you in advance, it's not for the faint-hearted.'

Soon the Pirate Captain was strolling through Hyde Park telling his crew all about life on the inside.12 'You have to survive on your wits, really. Especially a good-looking fellow like myself. There was a real risk I could have been traded around by my cell mate for a packet of cigarettes. And it's important not to drop the soap. Though having said that, I'll miss the camaraderie. Taking new prisoners under your wing, showing them the ropes, that kind of thing.'

'We're very glad you're free again,' said the pirate with a scarf.

'Yes. Freedom. Difficult to adjust to that.' The Captain furrowed his brow and did his best thousand-yard stare. 'I hope I haven't become inst.i.tutionalised.'

'I think it takes longer than half an hour to become inst.i.tutionalised, Pirate Captain.'

'You can be very harsh at times, number two. Anyhow, obviously ninety per cent of this attention we've been getting is as a result of my genuine and undoubted piratical fame. But it does appear that some of it may be a result of people mistaking me for this Karl Marx fellow.'

The pirates all made rea.s.suringly disbelieving 'as if' noises.

'It says here that he's a communist,' said the Captain, reading from the flyer, 'which I'm fairly sure is a circus thing, isn't it? This Engels man, who seems to be the sidekick, invited us to hear him speak tonight. He mentioned a business proposition, which tends to mean they want me to sign something or press the flesh with potential clients. Endorse the show and so on.'

'Oh, bother. I thought we could go to the opera,' said the pirate with long legs. 'I'm told this Wagner thing is brilliant.'

'I'd rather stay on the boat and knock nails into my head,' said the Pirate Captain sternly.

He paused to watch some children sailing toy boats on the lake. Then he kicked at a stone and gave a little cheer when it hit and sank one of them.

'I know that seemed a little harsh,' the Captain said, catching the looks some of his men were giving him, 'but think of it as maintaining my image. In today's fickle media climate I can't risk becoming yesterday's notorious buccaneer. There are thousands of aspiring pirate captains out there.'

'Like this Dr Marx?' asked the pirate in green.

'Do you know, that must be it! He's probably trying to take my place as public enemy number one by copying my look and sticking up posters of himself everywhere. It's sad really, to have to stoop to those sorts of levels. So let's find out what he has to say for himself.' The Captain did the flashing thing with his eyes again. 'Besides everything else, I'm keen to see if this so-called beard of his is all it's cracked up to be.'

9 Nails grow at an average of 0.1 mm per day. This rate varies according to a number of factors including age, season, fitness and genetics, so it is actually a rubbish way of telling the time.

10 A 105-year-old parrot called Charlie entertains visitors to a Surrey shopping centre with obscene anti-n.a.z.i tirades. Claims that the parrot was once owned by Winston Churchill have not yet been verified.

11 In cooking, brining is the practice of soaking meat in salt water prior to cooking. Brined meat is more moist when served, due to denatured proteins forming a matrix that traps water molecules.

12 Hyde Park was laid out by the architect Decimus Burton, which is a brilliant name. He also designed the llama building at London Zoo.

Four.

DEATH CAN BE SQUID-SHAPED.

Soho wasn't the most salubrious part of Victorian London, but what it lacked in top-hatted gentlemen and women in crinolines it more than made up for with cholera, hollow-eyed beggars and plenty of infant death. As they made their way towards the pub where Marx was holding his talk, the pirates were especially touched to hear so many of the ladies who were slouched in doorways ask if they were looking for a good time, which the Pirate Captain explained was down to a natural chirpy c.o.c.kney friendliness. Eventually, they came upon a small queue of earnest-looking communists waving placards.

'Very nice,' said the pirate in green, trying to be polite. 'I like the blood dripping from that dollar sign.'

'Are you particularly into hammers and sickles, then?' said the albino pirate, looking at the little flag pinned up above the entrance to the pub.

'Oh, you know. All sorts of tools,' said a communist. 'It's kind of our logo.'

'Really? I'm sure you could do better than that,' said the pirate in red. 'The best logos tend to have skulls in them. Or how about some sort of anthropomorphic talking animal? They're always popular. "Sparky the communist firefly" something along those lines?'

At the front of the queue, a man with a long, brown beard was doing his best to look furtive. 'You cannot enter without a pa.s.sword,' he said, holding up a hand and sounding stern.

'Oh, right. This is fun! How many guesses do I get?' said the Pirate Captain, doing his most conspiratorial face.

'You get three.'

'Is it "brine"? That's a good pa.s.sword. It's actually just salt water, but it sounds more enigmatic. Brine. Say it with a Scottish accent that's even more mysterious.'

'It's not "brine".'

'Hmmm . . . Is it "barnacle"?'

'No. One guess left!'

'"Barnacle" would be an excellent pa.s.sword. I'd say barnacles are the most mysterious fish in the whole sea. n.o.body knows what they are. I've always thought they might be little eyes, but some of the men think they're actually the ghosts of dead sailors. A bit far-fetched for me. What do you think?'13 'I'm afraid I have no idea.'

'Oh well, it was worth a try. Anyway, the pa.s.sword is "h.e.l.lo". I was just mucking about with you, because it's actually written on the back of your hand there, isn't it?'

The inside of the pub was dark and smoky, and its walls were covered in slightly moth-eaten stuffed animals and paintings of singing cats. The Pirate Captain winced a bit as he recalled an unsuccessful adventure where he'd taken up taxidermy to make the pirates individual stuffed Christmas presents. It had turned out that taxidermy was rather more technical than he'd expected, and to this day he'd never quite got the smell of bird innards out of some of the crew.

They made their way upstairs and jostled to find seats. The place was already full to bursting, and they had to push past quite a few grumbling communists who didn't seem to welcome French schoolchildren. Engels emerged from a door at the back of the room and stepped up to the podium. He motioned for quiet.

'h.e.l.lo, comrades,' said Engels.

'h.e.l.lo, Engels,' replied the communists.

'Any capitalist spies in tonight?'

A few men with stuck-on beards waved.

'Would you mind leaving?' asked Engels politely. 'We've nothing to hide, it's just that there aren't enough chairs and some real communists are having to stand at the back. Thanks.'

The spies left cheerfully, and Engels pressed on.

'Now, I know you're all eager to hear Dr Marx speak, but this is a party meeting and I'm afraid I have to denounce a few comrades first. So . . . the following have behaved contrary to the interests of the international proletariat and are no longer considered party members: Tamsin Virgo, parlourmaid expelled for wearing reactionary hats. Robert Adey, cabinetmaker expelled for laughing at a postcard that Dr Marx has deemed to be inappropriately pro-bourgeois. And finally Fiona Hankey, dressmaker expelled for not pulling her weight in the tea-making sphere.'

The denounced communists stood and trudged miserably out of the room, while the rest of the audience tutted loudly to show their disapproval of such backsliders. Engels waited patiently and resumed in a slightly deeper, more portentous voice.

'Sshhhh. Can you hear that sound? Listen very carefully. That's the sound of the ruling cla.s.ses trembling at the threat of communistic revolution. So please allow me to introduce the terror of the bourgeois, the hobgoblin stalking Europe, the nightmare of greedy capitalists everywhere . . . without further ado . . . it's Dr Karl Marx!'

Everybody clapped enthusiastically and Dr Marx popped up from behind the podium, where he had been hiding all along. He was the hairiest man the pirates had ever seen.14 Several of the crew were actually worried for a moment that the Seaweed That Walked Like a Man had returned from one of their previous adventures to ambush them. His nose was hairy. His forehead was hairy. Even his hands were hairy. And his beard was a great bushy black number, which looked like he had sellotaped a bunch of cats to the bottom of his face and then frightened them with a loud noise.

The Pirate Captain turned a shade of purple that, if you'd seen it on a flower petal rather than a pirate, would have been considered very becoming.

'I look nothing like him!' he exclaimed to the pirate in green, apoplectic. 'That beard! It looks like it's been scribbled on to his face by a toddler! And his ears! Do I have that much hair growing out of my ears?'

'No, Captain,' said the pirate in green. 'I've always admired how hairless your ears are.'

Marx cleared his throat, smiled and waited for the applause to die down.

'I love capitalism and think all the workers are lazy good-for-nothings who should be made to work until they die from exhaustion!'

The audience gasped.

'I don't really,' said Marx.

The communists sighed in relief. The pirates approved the headline-grabbing opening line was a tried and tested pirate trick, much used by the Pirate Captain to get their attention. It suggested that they were in for a rollercoaster ride of a speech that would have them on the edge of their seats.

'I shall address you all tonight on the uprising of the Silesian weavers and how it can serve as an example for the urban proletariat in our struggle against the tyranny of the bourgeoisie.'

You can't exactly hear pirate expectations dropping, but if you could, everyone in Soho would have been deafened.

The Pirate Captain knew that it was bad form to doze off during a lecture. He wasn't sure how it had happened, but the next thing he knew he was waking up with his head on the pirate in green's shoulder. A thin stream of saliva had drooled out of his mouth.

'How long was I asleep?' he asked.

'About an hour,' said the pirate in green, fighting back a yawn. 'He's just getting warmed up, I think. It's quite . . . erm, dry. You missed a heated discussion about whether communist paintings should restrict themselves to bleak geometric shapes' he indicated a painting propped up on the podium that was mostly lines and triangles, but with the odd circle thrown in for light relief 'or whether they should concentrate on stirring pictures of workers doing heroic things instead.' He indicated another painting that showed a rosy-cheeked peasant girl toiling in the wheat fields with the sun on her face who looked a bit tired, but in a s.e.xy way that suggested she would still be a lot of fun to go out with. 'He tends to go off on tangents a lot. He's already spent half an hour denouncing the man who decorated the room.'

'There will now be a short interval,' announced Marx. 'Comrade Engels will be serving ice cream by the doorway.'

Pirates and communists alike ran for the toilets. 'Ooh! Ice cream!' squealed Jennifer. There was a great crush of pirates towards the doorway, where Engels stood with a tray of ice cream round his neck.

'What flavours do you have?' asked the pirate with a hook for a hand.

'We have vanilla, strawberry and chocolate,' said Engels.

'Is that it? No raspberry ripple? That's my favourite.'

'Sorry.'

'When I saw Cats! they had cornettos. Why haven't you got cornettos?'

'I lost my little spoon out of the lid. Can I have another one?'

Eventually, the Pirate Captain got to the front of the queue. 'What flavours have you got then, comrade?' he asked with a grin.

'Pirate Captain! I'm so glad you came. We've got vanilla, strawberry and . . . an important business proposition.' Engels whispered this last part.

'What happened to the chocolate?' asked the Pirate Captain with a frown.

'Captain, this really is a matter of some urgency.'

'Yes, sorry. So. A business proposal. In pirate language that translates as "an idea for adventure", which I'm very keen on. Unless you meant a real business proposal, like a scam to buy and sell performing dogs to theatre impresarios I don't like the idea of that one bit.'

'No, it's not that.'

'Good. Because it turns out that the market is sewn up,' said the Pirate Captain bitterly.

Engels ushered the Captain to one side. 'I take it that, being a pirate, you have a boat?'

'Best boat on the Seven Seas. Lord Nelson himself said it was the finest vessel he'd ever seen.'

Engels looked a little disbelieving. 'He didn't say it with his mouth,' the Captain added. 'He said it with his eyes. Eye.'

'I need to book pa.s.sage to Paris for myself and Dr Marx. I fear we're in great peril.'

'Oh, I do peril very well,' said the Pirate Captain. 'It's practically my middle name. What kind of peril are you in? Haunted by ghosts? Caught impersonating a bishop? Chased by tigers?'