East of Ealing (9 page)

The mighty Morris has to its credit many an endearing feature. Ask any driver and he will mention such things as comfort, luxury, fuel economy, or the obvious prestige of ownership. But stand that man in front of his locked car to view the spectacle of his ignition keys dangling in the steering column and he will then address his praise towards the inevitably faulty boot-lock and the detachable rear seat. Pooley had crawled into more than a few Morrises on drunken evenings past when further staggering home looked out of the question. Now he was hardly backward in going that very direction.

Nemesis was yet two hundred and fifty yards to the fore. As the car ploughed on relentlessly towards the yawning chasm ahead, Jim clawed at the rear seat with his maimed fingers. With the kind of superhuman effort which would have done credit to any one of a dozen
Boy’s Own Paper
heroes, he plunged into the boot and fought it open.

With one bound he was free.

As the car breasted the rim of the chasm and dashed itself down towards oblivion, Jim tumbled out into the roadway, bowling over and over like a rag doll, to the accompaniment of many a sickening, bone-shattering report. He came to a final dislocated standstill a few short yards from doom. A loud explosion beneath, a column of flame, and a rising black mushroom cloud of oily smoke signalled the sorry end of a fine car. Pooley made a feeble attempt to rise, but to no avail. Every bone in his body seemed broken several times over. His head was pointing the wrong way round for a start. A flood tide of darkness engulfed the fallen hero and Jim lapsed away into a dark oblivion of unconsciousness.

John Omally pressed his way through Professor Slocombe’s ever-open French windows. The old scholar sat in a fireside chair earnestly conversing with the hawk-nosed man from another time. He waved his hand in familiar fashion towards the whisky decanter.

“So where is lucky Jim?” Sherlock Holmes asked. “Putting in his bid for the brewery?”

Omally shook his head and his face showed more than just a trace of bitterness. “I Was to meet Jim at the bench. We were planning a Nile cruise.” John flung the bundle of holiday brochures he had acquired the night before into the Professor’s fire. “I missed him. No doubt he is lying even now in the arms of some avaricious female. Oh, cruel fate.”

“Cruel fate indeed,” said Holmes darkly. “Lucky Jim may not be quite so lucky as he thinks himself to be.”

Omally pinched at the top of his nose. “We sank a few last night and that is a fact. Jim wisely kept back a wheelbarrow-load for expenses. He was more than generous.”

“So I understand. I regret that we were unable to attend the festivities. Tell me now, would I be right in assuming that Jim was wearing gloves last night?”

Omally nodded. “Said that the money had given him a rash. I didn’t give it a lot of thought, you know what these millionaires are like, walking round in Kleenex boxes and drinking Campbells soup from tins, it’s quite regular to those lads.”

Sherlock Holmes leant forward in his seat. “Might I ask you to show me your hands?”

Omally thrust them hurriedly behind his back.

“As I deduced,” said the great detective. “Both door and window was it?”

Omally bit at his lip and nodded ruefully. “Until but a few minutes since.”

Professor Slocombe cast Holmes a questioning glance.

“Purely a matter of deduction,” that man explained. “Let me see if I can set the scene, as it were. Mr Omally here has seen his dearest friend become a multimillionaire in the matter of an hour and a half. He helps him transport these riches to the bank and the two spend the night in revelry, finally returning to their respective abodes. But our friend cannot sleep, he paces the floor, he is assailed with doubts. Will the money change his companion, will it destroy their long and enduring friendship? Will he turn his back upon him? At last he can stand it no longer, his mind is made up. He will set out at once to his friend’s house and knock him up. But this is not to be. He tries to open his door but it will not move. After many vain attempts to secure his freedom he tries the window, this proves similarly unrewarding, the glass cannot even be broken.”

Professor Slocombe looked quizzically towards Omally who was catching flies with his mouth. “Is this true?” he asked.

“In most respects; it fair put the fear of the Almighty into me I can tell you.”

“We are indeed dealing with mighty forces here,” said Sherlock Holmes, springing to his feet. “And now I think that should we wish to entertain any hope of saving your friend we had best move with some expediency. Let us pray that the trail is not yet cold.” Without uttering another word he whisked on his tweedy jacket and plunged out through the French windows, followed by Professor Slocombe. Omally shook his head in total disbelief at it all, tossed back his drink, and followed in hot pursuit.

Holmes strode ahead up the sweeping tree-lined drive of the Butts Estate and crossed the road towards the Memorial Library. Before Pooley’s bench he halted and threw himself to his hands and knees. “Aha,” he said, taking up the spent butt of an expensive cigarette. “He’s been here and he walked towards the kerb.” Omally and the Professor looked at one another. Omally shrugged. Holmes scrutinized the roadway. “He entered a roadster here and was driven off at some speed in that direction.”

“Can you make out the licence plate number?” Omally said cynically.

Holmes looked him up and down coldly. “I can tell you that he was helped into the car by a gentleman of foreign extraction, who parts his hair on the left side and has his shoes hand-made, size seven and a half.”

Omally’s eyes widened. “Antoine, Bob the bookie’s chauffeur.”

“Such was my conclusion. Now, unless you wish to waste more valuable time in fruitless badinage, I would suggest that we make haste. Time is of the essence.”

“Lead on,” said John Omally.

It is a goodly jog from the Memorial Library to the old quarry, but Holmes led the way without faltering once upon his course. Here and there along the route he dropped once more to his knees and examined the road surface. Each time Omally felt certain that he had lost his way, but each time the detective rose again and pointed the way ahead. At length the three men turned into the old quarry road. Ahead in the distance lay the crumpled wreckage which had been Jim Pooley. With a small cry Omally bounded forward and came to a standstill over the disaster area. “Oh, no,” said he, sinking to his knees. “Oh no, it wasn’t worth this.”

Sherlock Holmes and the Professor slowly approached, the old man supporting himself upon his stick and wheezing terribly. “Is he…?” the words stuck in the Professor’s throat.

Omally buried his face in his hands. “My true friend,” he mumbled, his voice choked by emotion. He slumped back on his knees and stared up at the sky. Tears had formed in his deep-blue eyes and fell over his unshaven cheeks. “Why?” he shouted up at the firmament. “Tell me why?”

Holmes came forward and, stooping, turned Pooley’s right palm upwards. The eighteen lines glowed darkly in the otherwise brilliant sunlight. “There is nothing you can do for him now,” he said.

“No!” Omally elbowed the detective’s hand away. “Leave him alone, you are part of this. What the hell is going on here anyway? Why did it happen?”

“Come, John,” said the Professor, laying a slim hand upon the Irishman’s shoulder. “Come away now, there is nothing that can be done.”

Omally looked up bitterly at the old man. “You knew about this, didn’t you?” he said. “You knew something bad was going on, you should have stopped it. You and your numbers and your magic.”

“Come, John, come please.”

Omally rose slowly to his feet and stared down at Pooley’s mortal remains. “I will kill the man who did this, Jim,” he said slowly and painfully.

Professor Slocombe pressed his hand once more to John’s shoulder, and led the stumbling man away.

“All well and bloody good,” came a voice from the grave. “But who is going to turn my head around for me?”

Omally spun about. “Jim, you old bastard!”

“Who else would it bloody be? My head, John, if you please? It is most uncomfortable.”

The lads at the Cottage Hospital were nothing if not thorough. Spending their days as they did, playing dominoes and hunt the hypodermic, they were more than willing to face up to the challenge of the bloody spectacle Professor Slocombe presented them with. Having run a light-pen quickly over Pooley’s right hand they pronounced him private patient and went about their tasks with a will. Had not the Professor been a member of the Board of Governors, there seemed little doubt that they would have been a great deal more thorough than they were. Most likely to the extremes of an exploratory operation or two, with the removal of Pooley’s tonsils as an encore. As it was they prodded and poked, applied iodine, took X-rays, forced him to remove his trousers, turned his head to the right, and made him cough. As an afterthought they inoculated him against tetanus, mumps, whooping cough, and diphtheria. As Doctor Kildare came up on the hospital tele-video they summarily dismissed him with a few kind words, a large bill, and a prescription for Interferon no chemist could ever hope to fill.

“See,” said Omally, as the four men left the hospital, “all this fuss and not a bone broken.”

Pooley felt doubtfully at his bruised limbs. “I will not bore you with my opinion of the National Health Service,” said he. “Nor even waste my time bewailing my lot, as my pleas for sympathy fall for ever upon deaf ears.”

At last the four men entered the Professor’s study. A large medicinal gold watch was handed at once to the invalid who was placed in a heavily-cushioned chair. “My thanks,” said Jim, pocketing it away in his throat. The sun danced in upon the carpet and the four weary men lay slumped in various armchairs, each unwilling to be the first to break the tranquil silence. Pooley’s limbs creaked and complained to themselves. With a crackling hand he poured himself another drink. Holmes and the Professor exchanged occasional guarded glances, and the old man appeared at times obsessed with the silver pentacle which hung upon his watch-chain. Omally drummed his fingers soundlessly upon the chair’s arm and waited for the storm to break; the silence was rapidly becoming close and oppressive.

Finally Jim could stand it no longer. “All right,” he said, climbing painfully to his feet. “What is going on? You all know a lot more of this than me.”

“I don’t,” said Omally, “but I am beginning to have my suspicions.”

“So what is it?” Pooley turned to the Professor. “I have just miraculously survived an attempt upon my life by a lunatic chauffeur. Such should be the cause for some small rejoicing surely. If I was dead, Omally here would already be ordering the beer for the wake.”

Professor Slocombe stepped over to his desk and took up the day’s copy of the
Brentford Mercury
. He held the front page towards Jim. “Have you read this?”

Pooley perused the encircled article with little interest and less comprehension. “It’s about computer lines,” said he. It did not go unnoticed by Holmes and the Professor that his right hand slid unobtrusively away into his trouser pocket.

“It is much more than that,” said the old man. “It is an essential link in a dark chain of events which, unless severed, will inevitably engirdle us all. To our ultimate destruction.”

“Come now,” said Jim. “It is just some nonsense about banks and computers, nothing more I assure you.”

Professor Slocombe shook his head, “Sadly, it is a great deal more than that. It is conclusive proof that all my worst fears are founded and even now the prophecies of the book of Revelation are coming to pass.”

“You jest, surely?”

Professor Slocombe shook his head once more. “Believe in what I say,” said he. “We are facing the greatest threat mankind has faced since the deluge. We are facing the final conflict. The apocalypse. Even now the curtains are closing.”

“No.” Jim shook his head violently and not a little painfully. “All the stuff in that old book is most depressing. Look at me now. I experienced a slight setback, but it was the result of pure spite on Bob’s part. Just because I won and he’s banged up in hospital a bit scorched. I am battered but wealthy. The gods are smiling upon me.”

“No,” said Professor Slocombe. “Money will not buy you out of this one, especially money which was never intended for your use.”

Pooley scratched at his head, raising a fine cloud of dust. “You wouldn’t care to enlarge a little on this would you Professor?” he asked. “You see such news catches me at a rather inopportune moment. John and I are planning a bit of a holiday. Armageddon might interfere with our traveller’s cheques.”

Professor Slocombe shook his head once more. Jim was beginning to find the habit mildly annoying. He had millions of pounds knocking about in the bank and was now really looking forward to spending them before they caught the moth. “Do you really believe yourself to be one favoured of the gods?”

Jim nodded noisily. “At this time definitely yes.”

“All right then, I will make this short, but by no means sweet. We will speak of these matters again. For now let me read you a verse or two from the Revelation; possibly it will convince you, possibly not.” Definitely not, thought Jim Pooley. The Professor took himself over to his desk where he sat before the large and outspread family Bible. “I will spare you the preliminaries as it is obvious that you consider your time valuable. I will simply give you the relevant part and allow you to muse upon it.”

“Thanks,” said Jim doubtfully.

“Revelation, Chapter Thirteen,” said Professor Slocombe. “This speaks of the beast that has risen from the Earth. We will address our attention to verses sixteen, seventeen; and eighteen.” He spoke the final number with a deadly intensity.

“Go ahead then.”

The Professor adjusted his ivory pince-nez and read aloud from the open book:

“16. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond to receive a mark in their right hand or in their foreheads.

17. And that no man might buy or sell save that he had the mark or the name of the beast or the number of his name.

18. Here is wisdom. Let he that hath understanding count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man, and his number is six hundred, three score and six.”

The Professor gently closed the Holy Book and looked up towards Jim Pooley. The millionaire sat bolt upright in his chair. His eyes were unblinking and stared ever downward towards the open palm of his right hand, where the computer bar code was indelibly printed. Eighteen computer lines. Three rows of six. The number of a man, six hundred, three score and six.

666

The number of the Beast. Things were suddenly beginning to sink in.

“Oh dear,” said John Omally, who was not a man unacquainted with the Scriptures. “Why did I just know you were going to choose those very verses to be today’s text?”